An original, compelling essayist with the Vision thing

Kevin Breathnach tinkers with form – setting prose as verse, playing sly tricks with margins and layout

Essays: Tunnel Vision, By Kevin Breathnach, Faber & Faber, €14.95

Kevin Breathnach’s debut collection of essays has already been reviewed, in some quarters, as if it were an ordinary assemblage of critical and confessional pieces – a portrait of the artist as a young poseur – with a few sprigs of intellectual watercress sitting decoratively on top (quotations from Kafka, Thomas Mann, Claudia Rankine, et cetera).

This is a purblind approach to a ...