by Seamus Deane
First published 1997
The unnamed narrator lives in Derry during the 1940s and 1950s, where whispered conversations stop when he enters rooms and family stories remain half-told. His father disappeared before his birth under mysterious circumstances that no one will explain. The boy pieces together fragments about his father's fate while navigating a world where political violence seeps into daily life. His mother guards painful secrets. His relatives speak in code about the past. The family's silence weighs heavier as the boy grows older and his questions become more insistent. He discovers that his father may have been an informer, a revelation that threatens to shatter his understanding of his family and himself. The story unfolds through the boy's memories and perceptions as he moves from childhood confusion to adult comprehension of the terrible choices his family faced during the Troubles.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, family-drama
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Derry, Northern Ireland
Period: 1940s, 1950s
246 pages · Hardcover · Alfred A. Knopf