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Cal reveals “His four best buddies were among the reasons he left Chicago; the depth and detail with which they knew him had come to feel unsafe…” (pg 202). What do you think this means? Do you think Cal was running from something in his past in Chicago? What do you think his other reasons might be? Why do you think he chose to move so far away?
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Cal came to Ireland for various reasons. He retired after 25 years on the police force and a divorce, retiring partly because his wife told him that she thought he would be a better husband and father if he was not a policeman. But, she had already moved on to someone else by the time he made that decision. He felt like a fraud and that he had let down his wife and daughter. He had a feeling that somewhere along the way he got out of the practice of doing the right thing. “It was that one or the other of them, him or the job, couldn’t be trusted.” I think Cal is running from himself and his inability to fix things in his personal/professional life. “It’s always been a trait of his, whether for better or for worse, to prefer setting his mind to things he can do something about.” His four buddies in Chicago knew more about him than he did about himself; he was afraid they would spot something before he did. Cal tells Lena that he came to Ireland because he was looking for “a small place, a small town in a small country. It seemed like that would be easier to make sense of.” “He wanted land partly so he could blast Steve Earle loud enough to knock squirrels out of the trees, and he wanted buttfuck nowhere partly so he wouldn’t have to set alarms any more.” He came looking for peace and a place to build a new life.
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Like Nancy, I see Cal as coming to Ireland not for something but to leave himself behind, the part of himself he is afraid his four best friends will see, an intimacy that makes him feel unsafe. I don’t think he is running from some specific time or event in his past as much as he is from his present, mostly the end of his marriage and his wife’s criticism. Cal has stopped trusting himself and his ability to navigate relationships with people. He might protest but I think he misses his job and the sense of purpose it gave him, something he finds a bit of in searching for Brendan. (In that, he reminds me of Armand).
To the extent that Cal came to Ireland and Ardnakelty for something, I think it was for a sense of community and belonging, a small and rural community like the one in NC where he grew up. Perhaps he expected people to be more direct and easily understood. I think Ardnakelty proves that no matter how far away one goes, one takes oneself along.
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I think Cal was referring to how insecure he had become with himself. When someone knows us well they know all our quirks, facial expressions, how we will react in different situations. We lose some of our anonymity in this kind of friendship. He was struggling to redefine himself now that he was divorced and I think he felt like a failure because of the divorce.Cal didn’t want his buddies who knew him so well to realize just how insecure he was feeling. He feels that starting a new life far away from the familiarity of Chicago would be the best way to mend the fraying edges of his moral code. What he found in this quiet rural area of Ireland was more than beautiful countryside. He found a whole new culture, with an intricate set of rules and police work he didn’t bargain for. He found a child in need of his help and skills as a cop. He found a friend in Lena who helped him deal with Trey the way he should have dealt with his daughter when she was mugged and needed a father not a cop. None of this changed the past but it all gave him a better idea of how to handle the future. Cal was finding himself.
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I agree with you all– Cal was trying to find himself; he no longer had a clear picture, and was full of self-doubt. He was afraid that his friends might see the cracks in him. I think he also feared that they might pity him, see how shattered he was, and I think he would have hated that. It would have exposed his vulnerabilities and perhaps lessened him in their eyes. He feels the failure of his marriage acutely; he feels he’s failed not only his wife, but his daughter, by being the person he felt it was right for him to be, and that rocked his self-concept. And professionally, to be potentially losing his moral compass was intolerable; whoever he had become in that life was not who he wanted to be. So he starts over, in a “simple” place, with simple demands and goals, and hopes that will be enough and will heal him. What he finds, of course, is anything but simple, but it ends up healing him anyway, as he finds a life that he can be proud of living after all.
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Like you all have mentioned I think Cal feels adrift in his life and uncertain about himself personally and professionally. Maybe Cal feared his buddies would recognize this and sense it as a weakness and possibly judge him? He wouldn’t feel comfortable being that exposed. I also think as much as he wants to belong and be included in the group, it works against his loner instincts. He wishes his relationships were simpler and less fraught and I think he feels that a move to Ireland will help him find his center and help him restore his inner balance. If he’s running from anything, it’s his perception that he’s failed his loved ones and lost perspective in policing. I see him as a straightforward, honorable man but he’s not always comfortable with the convoluted ways people think and behave, and not comfortable with his desire to always fix things and help people.
I think he picks Ireland because he thinks it will be an easy place to live without trouble. This is spelled out in Chapter One: “One of the things that had caught his attention, when he first started looking into Ireland, was the lack of dangers: no handguns, no snakes, no bears or coyotes, no black widows, not even a mosquito. Cal feels like he’s spent most of his life dealing with feral creatures, one way or another, and he liked the thought of passing his retirement without having to take any of them into account. It seemed to him that Irish people were likely to be at ease with the world in ways they didn’t even notice.” Cal makes several assumptions about Ireland and the Irish that lead him into trouble, and perhaps the same thing happened in Chicago. But I agree with Libby that through helping Trey, Cal learns to see his weaknesses can be a strength. It helps him reconcile some of the guilt and doubts he’s been carrying around with him from his old life in Chicago.
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I love everyone’s answers. I think Cal sees himself as a protector – of his ex-wife, daughter and community. When he’s made to question his actions, he is thrown into self-doubt. So he goes to Ireland in search of a fresh start without complications and to assess what has happened and to collect his thoughts. Perhaps he doesn’t want to confide in his friends because he doesn’t think they can help him. Perhaps there are other reasons. Ultimately his move to Ireland is a positive one and, as Susan astutely says, he heals.
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