Annie Dunne [Paperback]

The central character in Sebastian Barry's novel Annie Dunne is a woman who has been pushed to the margins, a woman whom life has given few chances of happiness and fulfilment. Unmarried, she spends years as housekeeper to her brother-in-law because her sister is too ill to manage. Her sister dies, her brother-in-law remarries and Annie Dunne is homeless. Invited by her cousin Sarah, she moves to a small farm in a remote part of Wicklow. As the novel opens, the two cousins share their lives and the work on the farm. It is the late 1950s and rural Ireland is changing around them. Annie's nephew heads for London in search of work and leaves his young children with their great-aunt. Content with her life with Sarah, Annie also finds a new capacity for love in her feelings for the two children. Yet even the small pleasures that Annie finds in her life are threatened. An unlikely suitor pays court to Sarah. Her love for the children opens her up to pain almost as much as to happiness. Annie Dunne is a novel in which few external dramas occur--there is an accident with a pony and trap, one of the children goes temporarily missing--but Barry evokes superbly the inner dramas of his characters. In a society where emotions are often severely repressed and expressed only obliquely, small incidents hint at larger feelings and Barry has written a story in which these are subtly and poignantly unfolded.--Nick Rennison --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Unsentimental and exact, like clear glass.' The Times

Annie Dunne and her cousin Sarah live and work on a small farmin a remote and beautiful part of Wicklow in late1950s Ireland. All about them the old green roads are being tarred, cars are being purchased, a way of life is about to disappear. Like two old rooks, they hold to their hill in Kelsha, cherishing everything. When Annie's nephew and his wife are set to go to London to find work, their two small children, a little boy and his older sister, are brought down to spend the summer with their grand-aunt.

It is a strange chance of happiness for Annie. Against that happiness moves the figure of Billy Kerr, with his ambiguous attentions to Sarah, threatening to drive Annie from her last niche of safety in the world. The world of childish innocence also proves sometimes darkened and puzzling to her, and she struggles to find clear ground, clear light - to preserve her sense of love and place against these subtle forces of disquiet. A summer of adventure, pain, delight and ultimately epiphany unfolds for both the children and their elderly caretakers in this poignant and exquisitely told story of innocence, loss and reconciliation.

Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. His plays include Boss Grady's Boys (1988), The Steward of Christendom (1995), Our Lady of Sligo (1998), The Pride of Parnell Street (2007), Tales of Ballycumber (2009) and Andersen's English (2010). His novels include The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty (1998), Annie Dunne(2002), A Long Long Way (2005) and The Secret Scripture (2008) and, most recently, On Canaan's Side (2011). He has won, among other awards, the Irish-America Fund Literary Award, the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Prize, the London Critics Circle Award and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize. A Long Long Way, which was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Dublin International Impac Prize, was the Dublin: One City One Book choice for 2007. The Secret Scripture won the Costa Book of the Year award, the Irish Book Awards Best Novel, the Independent Booksellers Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award and the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Award. He lives in Wicklow with his wife and three children.