Reading in the Dark
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Vintage Publishing
Published:2nd May '19
Should be back in stock very soon
A new Vintage Classics edition of a masterful story of childhood, family and a violent politics - part of a set of beautiful presented Irish classics
This is the story of a haunted Irish childhood.
The setting is Derry in the Northern Ireland of the 40s and 50s, fraught with political hatred, family secrets and lethal intrigue.
In post-war Derry, a young boy grows up in a house heavy with silence.
From the 1940s through the early years of the Troubles, Reading in the Dark follows a child who senses that something terrible has happened long before he understands what it is. In whispered arguments, unfinished stories and the grief that grips his mother, he begins to glimpse the truth about his uncle’s death and the betrayal that shaped his family.
While poverty, sectarian fear and political violence press in on the narrow streets of his neighbourhood, the deepest wound lies within his own home.
Set in Northern Ireland across decades of unrest, Reading in the Dark is historical fiction rooted in intimate loss.
Reading In The Dark is a swift, masterful transformation of family griefs and political violence into something at once rhapsodic and heartbreaking. If Isaac Babel had been born in Derry, he might have written this sudden, brilliant book. * Seamus Heaney *
Marvellous...almost impossible to put down -- Blake Morrison * Independent on Sunday *
Go into your nearest bookshop and buy Reading In The Dark... A novel that no reader with any concern for their heart or mind should be without -- A. L. Kennedy * Scotsman *
A wonderful evocation of childhood; a vibrant, unforgettable fragment that leaves you aching for more -- Robert McCrum * Observer *
A profoundly emotive and seamlessly structured exploration of loss and regret. It is also funny and authentic. What more could one ask of a book? -- Antonia Logue * Guardian *
This is the work of a master story-teller...a book to buy, read and read again -- Julia Neuberger * Sunday Tribune *
In language strikingly lucid and scenes fired by a spare, aching passion, Reading in the Dark combines the intimacy of a memoir with the suspense of a detective story * New York Times *
ISBN: 9781784875534
Dimensions: 199mm x 132mm x 18mm
Weight: 192g
256 pages