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The Secret Scripture |
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| Book: Hardcover | 5.51 x 8.26in | 304 pages | ISBN 9780670019403 | 12 Jun 2008 | Viking Adult | 18 - AND UP |
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An epic story of family, love, and unavoidable tragedy from the two-time Man Booker Prize finalist
Sebastian Barry 's novels have been hugely admired by readers and critics, and in 2005 his novel A Long Long Way was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In The Secret Scripture, Barry revisits County Sligo, Ireland, the setting for his previous three books, to tell the unforgettable story of Roseanne McNulty. Once one of the most beguiling women in Sligo, she is now a resident of Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital and nearing her hundredth year. Set against an Ireland besieged by conflict, The Secret Scripture is an engrossing tale of one woman's life, and a vivid reminder of the stranglehold that the Catholic church had on individuals throughout much of the twentieth century.
“These lives are reimagined in language of surpassing beauty. Above all it is the surpassing quality of Mr. Barry’s language that gives it its power . . . Mr. Barry has said that his novels and plays often begin as poems (he is a published poet), but his language never clots the flow of his story; it never gives a whiff of labor and strain. It is like a song, with all the pulse of the Irish language, a song sung liltingly and plaintively from the top of Ben Bulben into the airy night.”
–Dinitia Smith, NY Times Daily Book Review
“Just as he (Barry) describes people stopping in the street to look at Roseanne, so I often found myself stopping to look at the sentences he gave her, wanting to pause and copy them down . . . When I reached the last page, I did feel that I had shared a profound experience . . .”
–Margot Livesey, The Boston Globe
“Luminous and lyrical.”
–Pam Houston, O Magazine
“I’d nominate Sebastian Barry, the most exhilarating prose stylist in Irish fiction—which just about makes him, by definition, the best prose writer in the English language . . . Barry has shown a dazzling facility with poetry, drama and fiction—his works form a mosaic-like whole, though each stands on its own. He never uses a fancy word when a simple one will do; his characters speak a plain vocabulary, but in cadences tempered and honed into poetry . . . Sebastian Barry’s achievement is unlike that of any other modern Western writer, a tapestry of interrelated works in different mediums woven from strands of his past and that of his country. The Secret Scripture fits seamlessly into a vision that seeks to restore with language that which has been taken away by history.”
–Allen Barra, Salon.com
Man Booker International Prize: Shortlist 2008
Costa Novel Award (formerly the Whitbread Award)
Irish Novel of the Year
Tubridy Listeners' Choice Award
I.M.P.A.C. Dublin Award: Longlist 2009
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