A good, rounded little tale hiding a dark secret that the reader guesses long before it is revealed. Jennifer Johnston is huge in her native Ireland, has won the Whitbread Prize (The Old Jest), was shortlisted for the Man Booker (Shadows on our Skin) and won prizes for The Captains and the Kings. She is a wonderful writer but this, although lovely, is not her best.
Sally, a successful actress, returns to her house in Goatstown from a European tour, just wanting to rest and to see her husband, Charlie, again. When Charlie announces that he’s leaving her, Sally angrily forces him to pack his bags at once. But maybe, she wonders later, she really is too hard to live with? Hoping for some glimmer of insight into the family secrets that have always dogged her, Sally turns to her grandfather, the frosty old Bishop she has never really known.
Jennifer Johnston is one of the foremost Irish writers of her, or any generation. She has won the Whitbread Prize (THE OLD JEST), the Evening Standard Best First Novel Award (for THE CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS), the Yorkshire Post Award, Best Book of the Year (twice, for THE CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS and HOW MANY MILES TO BABYLON?). She has also been shortlisted for the Booker Prize with SHADOWS ON OUR SKIN.
