Reviews

Watching the Door: Drinking Up, Getting Down, and Cheating Death in 1970s Belfast by Kevin Myers

mcsangel2's review

3.0

Started out pretty interesting, but devolved into a list of his sexual escapades by the end. I'm no prude, but didn't realize the book was more memoir than social commentary.

And one does wonder how exaggerated some of the book is. Not just referring to the sex, either. But I will admit that it was well written, and was fairly absorbed whenever I picked it up.

bgg616's review

5.0

This is a book that anyone interested in The Troubles should read. Myers, an English-born child of Irish parents, goes to Northern Ireland in the early 70's when he was in his early 20's. He ends up spending more than 6 years there, working erratically as a journalist. His straightforward accounts of the death and destruction, much of which he witnessed close hand,conveys the horror of the times. He is haunted by many of these deaths. It is hard to believe he survived countless encounters with paramilitaries of all persuasions, as well as the RUC and British Army. Often, he escaped through sheer luck. Other times he was warned he was on the hit list of this or that paramilitary group, because he was believed to be an informant. He drinks his way through the 70's, falls in love once, and mostly falls into bed with any woman he runs into. In 1970's Belfast, there wasn't a lot else to do,he writes. Myers thought the war in the North would only last a few years. In the end, realizing peace was not coming anytime soon, he left. Myers went on to work in other trouble spots, including Bosnia, and waited more than 30 years to write this book. This speaks volumes about the reality of Northern Ireland. Many of the people from 70's Belfast were dead by the time he wrote the book.