The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry
Roseanne McNulty, neé Clear, is 100 years old and has lived in mental asylums for some 60 years. Yet on the evidence of the memoirs she records in The Secret Scripture (Viking, $24.95), there is nothing wrong with her mind. Rather, due to several misjudgments earlier in her life—errors that, had they not happened in an Ireland rife with sectarian conflict, anger, and long memories, would have been minor—she earned the enmity of the town’s powerful Catholic priest. As Sebastian Barry, the accomplished Irish playwright and novelist, tells her story, it becomes also the story of her doctor, connected to her in ways she can’t begin to guess, and of a once deeply divided Ireland. Barry’s strong plotting and complex characters combine to make for realistic and compelling psychological suspense. Short-listed for the Booker prize.
