On Canaan's Side

“The greatest prose writer in Irish letters—which by definition makes him the greatest writer of prose in the English language . . . Sebastian Barry’s achievement . . . may be too great to be defined by the Booker or any other literary prize.” — Allen Barra, The Daily Beast "Must Reads"

Longlisted for the Booker Prize, a mesmerizing novel from the author of Old God's Time and The Newer World

A first-person narrative of Lilly Bere’s life, On Canaan’s Side opens as the eighty-five-year-old Irish émigré mourns the loss of her grandson, Bill. Lilly, the daughter of a Dublin policeman, revisits her eventful past, going back to the moment she was forced to flee Ireland at the end of the First World War. She continues her tale in America, where—far from her family—she first tastes the sweetness of love and the bitterness of betrayal.

Spanning nearly seven decades, Sebastian Barry’s extraordinary fifth novel explores memory, war, family ties, love, and loss, distilling the complexity and beauty of life into his haunting prose.