Winner of the Independent Booksellers’ Book Prize 2009 (Adult category).

Winner of the Costa Book of the Year Award 2008.

Winner of the Costa Novel Award 2008.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008.

Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 19 February 2009.

Costa Book Awards 2008 Judges' comment: "A heartbreaking and lyrical tale of loss, betrayal and redemption."

A powerful and moving novel bringing the worlds of Ireland's past and present together. Great characterisation and a thought provoking story.

Comparison: Joe Abercrombie, Stefan Zweig, John Banville
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Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. His plays include The Steward of Christendom and The Pride of Parnell Street and his novels include The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty, Annie Dunne, A Long Long Way and The Secret Scripture. A Long Long Way was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Dublin International Impac Prize, and was the Dublin: One City One Book for 2007. The Secret Scripture won the Costa Book of the Year award, the Irish Book Awards Best Novel, the Independent Booksellers Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He lives in Wicklow with his wife and three children. Photograph © Jerry Bauer More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation