Imprint: Jonathan Cape
Published: 14/01/2021
ISBN: 9781787332447
Length: 240 Pages
Dimensions: 223mm x 24mm x 145mm
Weight: 338g
RRP: £14.99
*THE TOP 10 IRISH BESTSELLER*
*A SINÉAD & RICK 'MUST READS' PICK*
An unforgettable tale of love, abandonment, hunger and redemption, from a rising star of Irish fiction
'O'Callaghan is one of our finest writers . . . and this is his best work yet' JOHN BANVILLE
*****
At just sixteen, Nancy leaves the small island of Cape Clear for the mainland, the only member of her family to survive the effects of the Great Famine. Finding work in a grand house on the edge of Cork City, she is irrepressibly drawn to the charismatic gardener Michael Egan, sparking a love affair and a devastating chain of events that continues to unfold over three generations. Spanning more than a century, Life Sentences is the unforgettable journey of a family hungry for redemption, and determined against all odds to be free.
This sweeping story of one family's fight for survival goes on making the heart lurch long after the final page, and confirms Billy O'Callaghan as one of the finest living Irish writers.
*****
'A lovely, piercing book' SEBASTIAN BARRY
'Stops you in your tracks so you can savour its utter beauty' ANNE GRIFFIN
'Momentous and epic storytelling' BERNARD MACLAVERTY
'So good and true it feels almost magical' SADIE JONES
'Eminently readable . . . My book of the year so far' RYAN TUBRIDY
Imprint: Jonathan Cape
Published: 14/01/2021
ISBN: 9781787332447
Length: 240 Pages
Dimensions: 223mm x 24mm x 145mm
Weight: 338g
RRP: £14.99
A lovely, piercing book.
Momentous and epic storytelling.
A superb and moving novel . . . O'Callaghan is one of our finest writers, in the tradition of John McGahern and Brian Friel, and this is his best work yet.
A book that stops you in your tracks so you can savour its utter beauty . . . O'Callaghan is amongst the finest storytellers and wordsmiths in Ireland today.
[An] epic story . . . Life Sentences is a beautiful novel.
Eminently readable . . . People who read Sebastian Barry, Donal Ryan, Liam O'Flaherty will really love [Life Sentences] . . . It's my book of the year so far.
Billy O'Callaghan's writing is so good and true it feels almost magical; Life Sentences is a beautiful book, a small epic, a joy.
Lyrical, poignant, gripping . . . O'Callaghan weaves together a narrative that is compelling and dazzlingly rendered.
Life Sentences brilliantly immerses us in its respective time periods, and . . . O'Callaghan's natural gifts as a writer . . . the author often coming out with a stunning turn of phrase.
The reader is invested from the start . . . So poetically elegant as to be breathtaking . . . Life Sentences is writing at its finest.