Roseanne McNulty, perhaps nearing her one-hundredth birthday - no one is quite sure - faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. Over the weeks leading up to this upheaval, she talks often with her psychiatrist Dr Grene. This relationship, guarded but trusting after so many years, intensifies and complicates as Dr Grene mourns the death of his wife.
Told through their respective journals, the story that emerges - of Roseanne's family in 1930s Sligo - is at once shocking and deeply beautiful. Refracted through the haze of memory and retelling, Roseanne's story becomes an alternative, secret, history of Ireland. Exquisitely written, it is the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and ignorance, and yet marked still by love and passion and hope.
Winner of the 2009 Costa Prize:
Following the judging, Matthew Parris, chair of the final judges, said: "Sebastian Barry has created one of the great narrative voices in contemporary fiction in The Secret Scripture. It is a book of great brilliance, powerfully and beautifully written."
Sebastian Barry
On Canaan's Side
$45.00 – Hard back / Faber & Faber
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On Canaan's Side
$29.95$19.95 – Paperback book / Faber & Faber
From the two-time Man Booker shortlisted author of The Secret Scripture comes a magnificent new novel, spanning one woman Lilly Bere's lifetime, lived between Ireland and America. On Cannaan's side has already made the 2... Buy or find out more →
The Secret Scripture
$24.00 – Paperback book / Faber
Roseanne McNulty, perhaps nearing her one-hundredth birthday - no one is quite sure - faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for cl... Buy or find out more →
Long Long Way
$23.95 – Paperback book / Faber
Told in Sebastian Barry's characteristically beautiful prose, A Long Long Way evokes the camaraderie and humour of Willie and his regiment, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, but also the cruelty and sadness of war, and the div... Buy or find out more →
Andersens English
$24.95 – Paperback book / Faber
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Whereabouts Of Eneas Mcnulty
$23.95 – Paperback book / Faber
Following the end of the First World War, Eneas McNulty joins the British-led Royal Irish Constabulary. With all those around him becoming soldiers of a different kind, however, it proves to be the defining decision of h... Buy or find out more →
