Irish Novels
Gregory Carr
Read Ireland Book News - Novels for Christmas
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An End to Flight by Vincent Banville
(Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 11.50 USD / 8.00 UK; New Island, 235 pages)
Michael Painter, an Irishman teaching in a Catholic Mission School in
Nigeria, is, by temperament and choosing, an observer. Boredom and the fear
of emotional involvement seem always to prevent him from taking a decisive
leap. And so, as the relief planes lift the European doctors, teachers and
priests out of a country convulsed by a violent Civil War they cannot
comprehend, Painter remains behind. Still in search of something to give
meaning to his life, Painter is submerged in the conflict as rival armies
shuttle back and forth across the enormous battlefield, wreaking identical
cruelties, slaughtering and being slaughtered. For Painter, as for the
starving Biafrans, there is no real end to flight. In a spare, muted style,
Vincent Banville communicates the horror of Africa at war in a work of
extraordinary power and depth. This is a timely reissue of a celebrated and
prize-winning novel that paints a picture of the beginnings of a strugg! le
that endures to this day.&nbs p; (Autographed Copies Available)
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Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor
(Paperback; 12.95 Euro / 15.00 USD / 9.99 UK; Secker & Warburg, 410 pages)
In the bitter winter of 1847, from an Ireland torn by injustice and natural
disaster, the 'Star of the Sea' sets sail for New York. On board are
hundreds of fleeing refugees, some brimming with optimism, many more
desperate. Among them is a maidservant with a devastating secret, bankrupt
Lord Merridith and his wife and children, an aspiring novelist, a maker of
revolutionary ballads, all braving the Atlantic in search of a new home.
Each is connected more deeply than they can possibly know. But a
camoflauged killer is stalking the decks; hungry for the vengeance that will
bring absolution.
The twenty-six-day journey will see many lives end, other begin afresh.
Passionate loves are tenderly recalled, ducked responsibilities regretted
too late; profound relationships shockingly unearthed where once it seemed
there were none. In a spellbinding story of tragedy and mercy, love and
healing, the further the ship sails towards the Promised Land, the more her
passengers seem moored to a past which will never let them go. A novel as
urgently contemporary in its preoccupations as it is historically revealing,
this gripping and compassionate tale builds with the pace of a thriller to
an unforgettable conclusion.
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Collected Short Stories by Michael McLaverty
(Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 15.00 UK; Blackstaff Press, 293 pages)
This book is a handsome illustrated edition of the short fiction of an Irish
writer who has been favorably compared to Chekhov. One of Ireland's most
distinguished short story writers, McLaverty wrote with acute precision and
intensity of the northern landscapes of his homeland - the lonely hill
farms, rough island terrain and the tight backstreets of Belfast. Focusing
on moments of passion, wonder or bitter disenchantment in lives that are a
continuous struggle towards the light, these stories, in the compassion of
the tone and the spare purity of the language, are nothing short of
masterly. Illustrated with specially commissioned wood engravings by
Barbara Childs, and including an introduction by Seamus Heaney and a
foreword by Sophia Hilton.
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Shroud by John Banville
(Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 28.50 USD / 21.99 UK; Picador, 407 pages)
Axel Vander, celebrated academic and man of culture, is spending his
twilight years on the west coast of America, when, out of the blue, a letter
arrives hinting at secrets he has been hiding for fifty years.
To find out just how much the writer knows about his past, Vander arranges
to meet her in Turin. But he is thrown into emotional turmoil by this
encounter with Cass Cleave, a deeply troubled young woman desperate to
discover a reason to continue living; and the meeting of the two leads
inexorably towards disaster.
Written in faultless, almost painfully beautiful prose, this is a novel that
is not afraid to ask deep questions, nor to answer them emphatically. It is
a richly rewarding work from one of the most accomplished Irish novelists of
his generation.
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The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
(Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 28.50 USD / 21.99 UK; Penguin Viking, 228 pages)
Captain Gault had seen off the three intruders easily enough. They had come
in the night with the intention of firing the house, but a single shot had
sent them scuttling back into the darkness. One, though, had been wounded
and for that the Gaults were not forgiven: sooner or later there would be
trouble again. Other big-house families had been driven out - the Morells
from Clashmore, the Gouvernets, the Priors, and the Swifts. It was time to
go.
But Lucy, soon to be nine, the only child of the household, could not bear
the thought of leaving Lahardane. Her world was the old house itself, the
woods of the glen, the farm animals, and the walk along the seashore to
school. All of that she loved and as the day of departure grew closer she
determined that this exile should not take place. But chance changed
everything, bringing about a calamity so terrible that it might have been a
punishment, so vicious that it blighted the lives of all the Gaults for many
years to come.
This novel by one of Ireland's finest writers begins in rural Cork in 1921,
in a country still in turmoil. The old order has fragmented; a way of life
is already over. Trevor brilliantly conveys the disquiet and confusion that
colour the story of Lucy Gault as it's told while happens, in towns and
countryside, and told again when passing time has made it different.
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Authenticity by Deirdre Madden
(Trade Paperback with End-flaps; 15.99 Euro / 16.50 USD / 13.00 UK; Faber,
385 pages)
After a brilliant youth, the painter Roderic Kennedy's life has been
overtaken by a series of crises - alcoholism, the failure of his marriage to
an Italian woman, and estrangement from his three daughters following his
return to Ireland. When he meets Julia Fitzpatrick, twenty years younger
and also an artist, it seems as if this period of turbulence and misfortune
from which he has been struggling to emerge is at an end. But when Julia
then meets William Armstrong, a middle-aged lawyer, it sets in motion a
chain of events which, in the course of the following year, has dramatic and
unforeseen consequences for all three of them.
Deirdre Madden's novel is her most ambitious to date; both a moving love
story and a thought-provoking meditation upon the nature of painting. It is
above all an exploration of what it means to be an artist in contemporary
society.
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Annie Dunne by Sebastian Barry
(Trade Paperback with End-flaps; 15.99 Euro / 14.50 USD / 13.00 UK; Faber,
228 pages)
'Oh, Kelsha is a distant place, over the mountains from everywhere. You go
over the mountains to get there, and eventually , through dreams.'
'I can picture the two children in their coats arriving. It is the start of
the summer and all the customs of winter and spring are behind us. Not that
those customer are tended to now, much.'
Annie Dunne and her cousin Sarah live and work on a small farm in a remote
and beautiful part of Wicklow in late 1950s Ireland.
All about them the old green roads are being tarred, cars are being
purchased, and a way of life is about to disappear. Like two old rooks,
they hold to their hill in Kelsha, cherishing everything. When Annie's
nephew and his wife are set to go to London to find work, their two small
children, a little boy and his older sister, are brought down to spend the
summer with their great-aunt.
It is a strange chance for happiness for Annie. But against this happiness
moves the figure of Billy Kerr, with his ambiguous attentions to Sarah,
threatening to drive Annie from her last niche of safety in the world. The
world of childish innocence also proves darkened and puzzling to her, and
she struggles to find clear ground, clear light - to preserve her sense of
love and place against these subtle forces of disquiet.
A summer of adventure, pain, delight and ultimately epiphany unfolds for
both the children and their elderly caretakers in this poignant and
exquisitely told story of innocence, loss and reconciliation from one of
Ireland's finest young writers.
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In the Forest by Edna O'Brien
(Trade Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 13.50 USD / 12.50 UK; 217 pages, Weidenfeld
Nicholson)
The popular Irish author returns to the countryside of western Ireland in
this controversial book. As with her previous novel, 'Wild Decembers',
murder is again the story's climax, but the killer's motives are deeply
buried in his mind. Michen O'Kane has lost his mother as a boy and, by the
age of ten, is incarcerated for petty crimes in juvenile detention centres,
'the places named after saints.' But his problems go beyond early loss and
sexual abuse - the killing instinct is already kindled in him. Fearful
neighbours name him the Kinderschreck, someone of whom small children are
afraid. As in Greek tragedy, this novel is not without unwitting victims
for sacrifice - a radiant young woman, her little son, and a trusting
priest, all despatched to the forest of O'Kane's unbridled, deranged
fantasies. Based on true events that still resonate in this part of
Ireland, this riveting, frightening and brilliantly told novel reminds the
reader tha! t anything can happen 'outside t he boundary of mother and
child', when protection isn't afforded to either perpetrator or victim.
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My Lover's Lover by Maggie O'Farrell
(Hardback; 18.99 Euro / 17.50 USD / 16.50 UK; Review, 322 pages)
Lily meets Marcus, an elusive but magnetic architect, on a pavement outside
a gallery. Within a week she has moved into his echoing warehouse apartment
in East London. But nothing could have prepared her for what she finds
there. A distinct presence haunts the flat, that of a woman who seems to
have left in a hurry, leaving behind a single dress hanging in the wardrobe,
a mysterious mark on the wall and the suffocating, lingering odour of
jasmine.
Marcus, deep in private grief, refuses to talk about it. Only the flat's
other inhabitant, Aidan, seems to understand Lily's unease, but he won't
explain or even discuss what took place before her arrival. Who was this
woman? And what exactly were the circumstances of her sudden disappearance?
This book, from one of Ireland's most exciting young writers, is a sensual
and unnerving story of passion, attachment and the strange, indissoluble
connection we have with our partners' former lovers. It is a gripping novel
about how, even at the end of a relationship, everything is far from over.
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Great Irish Drinking Stories edited and introduced by Peter Haining
(Paperback; 16.00 Euro / 20.00 USD / 10.00 UK; Souvenir Press, 333 pages)
Ireland's drinking culture has been exported around the world and given the
Irish a reputation as an entertaining and talkative nation. It has been an
inspiration for Ireland's other great export, her writers. From James
Joyce, Flann O'Brien and Brendan Behan to Roddy Doyle and Patrick McCabe,
all have written about drinking and its effects, the stuff of life and
sometimes the troubling consequences. The writers in this anthology are:
Samuel Beckett, Brendan Behan, Roddy Doyle, Patrick McCabe, Frank O'Connor,
Shane MacGowan, William Trevor, Malachy McCourt, Bernard Shaw, Peter
Tremayne, Robert J. Martin, James Joyce, Patrick Kavanagh, Flann O'Brien,
Marian Keyes, Sean O'Faolain, Edna O'Brien, Bernard MacLaverty, Brian Friel,
Sean O'Casey, J.M. Synge, Glenn Patterson, William Carleton, Lynn Doyle and
Eamonn Sweeney
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Slan agus beannacht!
Gregory Carr
www.readireland.ie
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