Double Crossing

Enforced emigration, particularly to America, has for so long been a facet of Irish life that, as a recurring theme in Ireland’s literature (adult and children’s), it has accumulated its own stock of clichés and conventions. Richard Platt’s Double Crossing cannot be said to escape these entirely but, thanks in no small part to the book’s presentation and its production values, it retains a considerable freshness. At its centre is a young Irish boy, David O’Connor, whose newly orphaned status necessitates a long journey by ship (the year is 1908) to an aunt and uncle in New York: the horrors of such a voyage and the vicissitudes of a new city life, already well documented in numerous other ‘emigration’ stories, are once again rehearsed in all their degradation and painstakingly recorded in the ‘journal’ which accompanies David throughout his experiences. It is one particular encounter on board the RMS ‘Campania’ which brings the reader to the novel’s central plot device – and to the question as to just how convincing it turns out to be. But, then, how convincing is the story as a whole? It is, as an authorial ‘afterword’ describes it, ‘an extraordinary tale’ – and one made all the more enticing by the numerous bits and pieces of documentation (all apparently genuine!) tipped in as mementoes to the text. Fact, fiction or faction? Take your pick.