Synopses & Reviews
It is 1883 and the farms of County Fermanagh, on the border of Ulster and what we now know as the Republic of Ireland, are crisscrossed with religious, political, and generational tensions. Through the events of a single day in the life of Elizabeth Winters, we see decades of pain, betrayal, and resentment build to a devastating climax.
Against the fearsome beauty of the Fermanagh landscape, the fate of McCabe's heroine, Beth, slowly and suspensefully unfolds. Born to a Catholic mother and an unknown Catholic father, conceived shortly before her mother's marriage to Protestant Billy Winters, Beth has lived a life of silent suffering since her mother's death. Determined to decide her own fate but doomed to repeat the tragic circumstances of her birth, McCabe illuminates her quiet, searing power with the tenderness of a poet, offering up a powerful, lyrical indictment of the tensions that tear families and nations apart.
Review
"...the finest novel by the greatest living Irish prose writer." Alan Warner
Review
"Brilliant, richly conceived, and perfectly narrated with the suspense of a good thriller." Kirkus Reviews
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"A deeply moving, powerful and unforgettable book." Michael Ondaatje
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"McCabe cleverly sets up the riveting climax of the book....It is the relationship between father and daughter...that drives this novel, a fine book that rarely blinks at the bitter truths of life, loss and war." Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Eugene McCabe was born in Glasgow in July 1930 of Irish parents, and the family moved back to Ireland in the 1940s. His trilogy of plays, Victims, received critical acclaim, Cancer winning the writers award in Prague and Heritage winning second prize in the Prix Italia. He continues to write and work on his farm in Drumard, Clones, Co Monaghan.