No Country for Young Men

by Julia O'Faolain

Overview

'Entertaining and rich in comedy . . . gripping and moving.' William Trevor
Sister Judith Clancy is told that she must leave the protection of her convent and return to her family. So begins the unravelling of community ties which form this brilliant and devastating story of human and political relations in twentieth-century Ireland. Past and present, memory, madness and buried trauma shift in a disturbing kaleidoscope as four generations of the O'Malleys and Clanceys attempt to come to terms with the after-effects of the Irish Civil War.
No Country for Young Men was nominated for the Booker Prize.
'One of the very best books of its kind that it has ever been my pain and pleasure to read.' Guardian

'A book to be bought and read and thought about.' Irish Times

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780571310449
Publisher:	Faber and Faber
Publication date:	08/27/2015
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	370
File size:	464 KB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Julia O'Faolain
No Country for Young Men was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She was brought up in Cork and Dublin, educated in Paris and Rome and married an American historian in Florence. She lived for many years in the US, and now lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

Title notwithstanding, this novel by the author of The Obedient Wife is for everybody. Shortlisted for the Booker prize, it combines history and mystery, high romance and barroom intrigue in a tale poised breathtakingly between the Irish Troubles of 1922 and today's bitterly embattled IRA. It centers on Sister Judith Clancy, removed from a convent where she has been forcibly incarcerated, to the home of her niece and nephew Grainne and Michael O'Malley, at precisely the time when an American filmmaker is recording the oral histories of the survivors of the Troubles. Sister Judith is one; painfully, often incoherently, she spills out the terror of those days and her role in it. Meanwhile, the filmmaker, James Duffy, falls in love with Grainne. Michael, faced with Grainne's open adultery, stumbles from pub to pub, the escape hatch that has cost him his career, his inheritance and now his marriage. Other members of the family, however, are dealing more directly with the affair, with a hidden scandal slowly reported by Sister Judith and with the politics of James's presence in Dublin. The people of Ireland here spring to life; their talk, guided by the author's perfect pitch, is ripe with brogue or elegantly English; the book is a triumph of intelligence, insight and surpassing wit. (January 20)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Divided, partisan Ireland of today and the bloody chaos of ``the Troubles'' during the 1920s frame this gripping novel of family and political loyalty. James Duffy, an American filming a pro-IRA documentary, becomes involved with the O'Malleys, once fiery revolutionaries tied to the death of an American IRA supporter. Through his attempts to revive old memories of the crime and his wild affair with Grainne O'Malley, Duffy creates a political and moral outrage that eventually outstrips the truth. O'Faolain perfectly captures the inbred, alcoholic complacency of modern Ireland, while demonstrating that simple human tragedies often outweigh complex political causes. Highly recommended. Shelley Cox, Special Collections, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

Library Journal