Relationships between fathers and sons can range from loving to distant and even cold. In Love’s Not Over Til It’s Over,  the Devlin father/son bond is complex.  Father and son love each other, but neither seems capable of having a meaningful conversation with the other. Set mostly in Queens, NY, and spanning nearly four decades, Edward Byrne’s novel is a compelling saga of an Irish Catholic family’s journey through mostly tumultuous times.

James is the son of Dave Devlin, a World War II combat veteran. The book follows James from a toddler to adulthood. Along the way, we see his interactions with those closest to him. James is emotionally distant from his mother and sister. As a teenager, drinking and playing ball games seem to be a ritual every time James gets together with his friends. With his wife, Maureen, he’s loving, but he has a proclivity for drinking too much and keeping information from her. Whenever a conversation is needed with his father,  it always begins with a sports commentary – “sports foreplay” – before more serious topics can be addressed, if they can be touched at all. As the Devlin family starts to disintegrate, James begins to distance himself  from his father as he tries to become his own man. 

The novel seeks to explain the mentality of emotionally guarded men. Each male character is wounded in some way. Dave’s father, Tom is disabled and never served in World War I. Dave’s mother is dismissive of her kind hearted husband with deep Roman Catholic  faith. She’s more concerned with his lack of earning ability. Tom and Dave seemed to have little in common except for the love of baseball. In fact, the two have a ritual of talking baseball before any conversation. When Dave wants to enlist in the Marines during World War II at seventeen, he awkwardly sought his father’s permission only after first discussing baseball. After the war, Dave came home with excessive guilt over his best friend’s death, a guilt that never left him. James is gifted with intelligence and a high draft number for the Vietnam War. With zero chance of being drafted and no plans to enlist, James feels his father’s huge disappointment. The men in James’ mother’s family struggle with alcohol addiction, something that James inherited. These wounded hearts make it nearly impossible to communicate among themselves as well as with the women in their lives.  

Love’s Not Over Til It’s Over touches on topics outside the father/son dynamic. Dave overcomes poverty and works his way up to being an advertising executive. James experiences the rivalry between the wealthy and middle class, as well as challenges to loyalty among friends. James’ mother, Peg is disappointed and ashamed of the  alcoholism in her family.  There’s also choices that individuals make that affect others. 

Byrne offers readers a peek into the window of James’s world. The novel begins in the 1950s when James is born and ends in the late 1980s after he becomes a father. The flashbacks to the 1940s center on his father’s wartime experience. James watches the world change before his eyes. The days of wanting to go to war and fight for your country seem long gone. While James is not actively participating in the Vietnam War or the protests, he is paying close attention to it. Even though he’s an outsider in all the madness, it doesn’t mean he’s not affected by some of the outcomes. His best friend, Michael, enlists so he can serve his country and ends up getting killed.  

This three-hundred-page novel is packed with the weight of the complexities within family, a changing society, and the difficulty and importance of communication. It is an enjoyable read, and at the end of the book, I wanted more. Byrne paints a great picture of New York family life in the 1960s. The dialogue and flashbacks serve the character development well. Catholicism is present, but appears mostly in the characters’ experience.  James attends Catholic school through most of his education. He and his friends are altar servers and play sports for the school team. The deeper spiritual side of Catholicism is displayed through the spiritual acts of James’ mother and Tom. I recommend this book to all, especially fathers and sons. New Yorkers will appreciate Byrnes’ loving depiction of his hometown, Queens, NY.