The Year of the French

Why it’s on the list: The 1798 rising in County Mayo, told through several narrators who each see a different war — a schoolmaster-poet, a Protestant rector, an English officer. Flanagan’s subject is how a political abstraction reaches a village and what it costs there.

Where I saw it: In the reply thread to @moseskagan’s question, “What historical fiction should I read next? (Bonus points for something involving building or trade, rather than violence)” (April 13, 2025) — a crowd-sourced list Kyle recovered by hand and saved to his Apple Note “Books To Read”; the full set of replies lives on What historical fiction should I… (tweet). It was listed there as “The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan”.

Connections

• Nationalism — the 1798 rising as the collision of imported revolutionary politics with local grievance.
• People Over Politics — the book’s method is to show the ideology from underneath.
• Historical Fiction — the genre the thread was asking about.
• What historical fiction should I… (tweet) — the thread this recommendation came from.