The Secret Scripture
AN IRISH TIMES BEST IRISH BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY
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4.4 • 21 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
**THE NEWER WORLD - THE UNFORGETTABLE NEW NOVEL FROM SEBASTIAN BARRY - IS AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW**
AN IRISH TIMES BEST IRISH BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY
Winner of the 2008 Costa Book of the Year
Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize 2008
Winner of the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year 2008
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008
A Sunday Times Top 100 Novel of the Twenty-First Century
Featured on BBC2's 'Between the Covers' as a Booker Gem 2021
Roseanne McNulty is one of the last inhabitants of a soon-to-be closed asylum in the West of Ireland. No one knows how old she is or can remember why she was committed. But she knows and, finally, is about to tell her psychiatrist, Dr Grene. Refracted through the haze of memory, Roseanne's account is an extraordinary alternative history of Ireland, and the story of a life blighted by mistreatment, yet marked still by passion and hope.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The latest from Barry (whose A Long Way was shortlisted for the 2005 Booker) pits two contradictory narratives against each other in an attempt to solve the mystery of a 100-year-old mental patient. That patient, Roseanne McNulty, decides to undertake an autobiography and writes of an ill-fated childhood spent with her father, Joe Clear. A cemetery superintendent, Joe is drawn into Ireland's 1922 civil war when a group of irregulars brings a slain comrade to the cemetery and are discovered by a division of Free-Staters. Meanwhile, Roseanne's psychiatrist, Dr. Grene, investigating Roseanne's original commitment in preparation for her transfer to a new hospital, discovers through the papers of the local parish priest, Fr. Gaunt, that Roseanne's father was actually a police sergeant in the Royal Irish Constabulary. The mysteries multiply when Roseanne reveals that Fr. Gaunt annulled her marriage after glimpsing her in the company of another man; Gaunt's official charge was nymphomania, and the cumulative fallout led to a string of tragedies. Written in captivating, lyrical prose, Barry's novel is both a sparkling literary puzzle and a stark cautionary tale of corrupted power.
Customer Reviews
Secret Scriptures
I couldn't put this book down. It is beautifully written, Roseanne's character is saddening but also passionate, absolutely gripping.