The Blackwater Lightship

by Colm Toibin (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $7.90

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $4.71

  'This is the most astonishing piece of writing, lyrical in its emotion and spare in its construction ...Toibin has crafted an unmissable read' Sunday Herald In Blackwater in the early 1990s, three women -- Dora Devereux, her daughter Lily and her granddaughter Helen -- have come together after years of strife and reached an uneasy truce. Helen's adored brother Declan is dying. Two friends join him and the women in a crumbling old house by the sea, where the six of them, from different generations and with different beliefs, must listen and come to terms with one another. 'It is in his emotional choreography that Toibin shows himself to be an exceptional writer. Helen is estranged from both her mother and grandmother ...Toibin helps them make peace -- and he does it beautifully' Sunday Telegraph 'He writes in spare, powerful prose and he is truly perceptive about family relationships which, at times, makes reading his stories incredibly painful. But this is a beautiful novel' Belfast News 'We shall be reading and living with The Blackwater Lightship in twenty years' Independent on Sunday

• Used

  Hardcover
  1999

  $10.57

• New

  Paperback
  2001

  $19.09

  It is Ireland in the early 1990s. Helen, her mother, Lily, and her grandmother, Dora have come together to tend to Helen's brother, Declan, who is dying of AIDS. With Declan's two friends, the six of them are forced to plumb the shoals of their own histories and to come to terms with each other. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, The Blackwater Lightship is a deeply resonant story about three generations of an estranged family reuniting to mourn an untimely death. In spare, luminous prose, Colm Toibin explores the nature of love and the complex emotions inside a family at war with itself. Hailed as a genuine work of art (Chicago Tribune), this is a novel about the capacity of stories to heal the deepest wounds.