An T-Ocras

By Martin Smallridge

An T-ocras A Novel by Martin Smallridge You know the kind of house I mean. Not just walls and roof and timber, but a place with a memory in its bones. Teach Caillte, they called it--the Lost House. It sits out there still, past the last road, where the wind has the final say and the sea minds its own deep sorrow. It didn't begin as a novel. It began the way a lot of things do--with a child asking for something simple and strange. "Tell me a story, Da. One that hurts a little. One that stays." And what else can a father do but listen? I tried first with a short tale, then a play. But the story wasn't finished--it never is when the house hasn't spoken all it means to say. What came instead was An T-ocras --The Hunger. A hunger older than fire, than names, than even the land's forgetting. Inside this house, time forgets how to behave. You'll meet a minstrel who traded voice for eternity, a woman walled behind weeping stones, and children the bog still whispers about. No easy heroes here. Just people, half-broken, half-hoping, trying not to vanish. I didn't write this book so much as I followed it. Sat with it through long nights, heard its silence, its grief. And when it spoke, I listened. You can't force a tale like this. You borrow it from the earth, from the ones who came before, and if you do it right, you give it back with a little more light. It's not a tidy story. The lines blur. The endings fray. But if you've ever stood on wet ground and felt something stir below, or heard your own name echo in a place it shouldn't, you'll understand. This is for the ones who remember what they shouldn't and carry it anyway. So go on. Step through the door. But mind yourself--some houses, once entered, don't let you leave unchanged.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0F4XDV672
• ISBN13: 9798319442819
• Release Date: April 2025
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 536 Pages
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 1.2" x 5.0"