The Heather Blazing

Eamon Redmond is a judge in Ireland's high court, a completely legal creature who is just beginning to discover how painfully unconnected he is from other human beings.

With effortless fluency, Colm Toibin reconstructs the history of Eamon's relationships - with his father, his first 'girl', his wife and the children who barely know him. He gives us a family as minutely realized as any of John McGahern's and he writes about Eamon's affection for the Irish coast with such painterly skill that the land itself becomes a character.