by SebastianBarry (Author)
Nearing her one hundredth birthday, Roseanne McNulty faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mental hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. Over the weeks leading up to this upheaval, she talks often with her psychiatrist Dr Grene. This relationship, guarded but trusting after so many years, intensifies and complicates as Dr Grene mourns the death of his wife. Told through their respective journals, the story that emerges - of Roseanne's family in 1930s Sligo - is at once shocking and deeply beautiful. Refracted through the haze of memory and retelling, Roseanne's story becomes an alternative, secret history of Ireland's changing character. Exquisitely written, it is also the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and ignorance, and yet marked still by love and passion and hope.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 24 Apr 2008
ISBN 10: 0571239617
ISBN 13: 9780571239610
Book Overview: A beautiful and moving novel of a remarkable woman's stolen life.
Prizes: Winner of Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year Award 2009 and Tubridy Show Listeners' Choice Award 2009 and Costa Novel Award 2008 and Costa Book of the Year 2008. Shortlisted for Galaxy British Book Awards: Borders Author of the Year 2009 and Independent Booksellers' Week Book of the Year Award: Adults' Book of the Year 2009 and Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2008.