Secrecy

I found it interesting in Wood how secretive the narrator and his mother must be in this seemingly harmless task of making poles. I think it speaks to the level of tension present in Ireland during the troubles. McCann barely writes of the political/religious issues in the background, yet we as readers are drawn into the story like a conspiracy. The making of poles seems to us like the making of deadly weapons. Oddly enough they are not hiding the job from an enemy or rival. In fact they are working for the "enemy" and hiding the job from the narrator's father.
I found it interesting how McCann chooses not to write about violence or death but something apparently innocent; milling logs. Yet the tension is there, and we see an aspect of war that isn't usually covered in "war novels": that of the family physically untouched by war, but still effected, and in this case split, torn between loyalties and survival.

http://www.linenmemorial.org/

This is an interesting site I found on a memorial dedicated to honoring those who died during the Troubles in Ireland. I thought it would be interesting to compare this memorial to McCann's memorial of the war through his story. You also see the immensity of the death that happened during this war that you don't get from Wood.