The Secret Scripture - Softcover

Sebastian Barry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571215297 ISBN 13: 9780571215294

Publisher: Faber and Faber, 2007

Synopsis

A gorgeous new novel from the author of the Man Booker finalist A Long Long Way

As a young woman, Roseanne McNulty was one of the most beautiful and beguiling girls in County Sligo, Ireland. Now, as her hundredth year draws near, she is a patient at Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital, and she decides to record the events of her life.

As Roseanne revisits her past, hiding the manuscript beneath the floorboards in her bedroom, she learns that Roscommon Hospital will be closed in a few months and that her caregiver, Dr. Grene, has been asked to evaluate the patients and decide if they can return to society. Roseanne is of particular interest to Dr. Grene, and as he researches her case he discovers a document written by a local priest that tells a very different story of Roseanne’s life than what she recalls. As doctor and patient attempt to understand each other, they begin to uncover long-buried secrets about themselves.

Set against an Ireland besieged by conflict, The Secret Scripture is an epic story of love, betrayal, and unavoidable tragedy, and a vivid reminder of the stranglehold that the Catholic Church had on individual lives for much of the twentieth century.

About this title

About the Author

Sebastian Barry is a playwright whose work has been produced in London, Dublin, Sydney, and New York. His novel A Long Long Way was a finalist for the 2005 Man Booker Prize. His other novels include The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty and Annie Dunne.

Reviews

The latest from Barry (whose A Long Way was shortlisted for the 2005 Booker) pits two contradictory narratives against each other in an attempt to solve the mystery of a 100-year-old mental patient. That patient, Roseanne McNulty, decides to undertake an autobiography and writes of an ill-fated childhood spent with her father, Joe Clear. A cemetery superintendent, Joe is drawn into Ireland's 1922 civil war when a group of irregulars brings a slain comrade to the cemetery and are discovered by a division of Free-Staters. Meanwhile, Roseanne's psychiatrist, Dr. Grene, investigating Roseanne's original commitment in preparation for her transfer to a new hospital, discovers through the papers of the local parish priest, Fr. Gaunt, that Roseanne's father was actually a police sergeant in the Royal Irish Constabulary. The mysteries multiply when Roseanne reveals that Fr. Gaunt annulled her marriage after glimpsing her in the company of another man; Gaunt's official charge was nymphomania, and the cumulative fallout led to a string of tragedies. Written in captivating, lyrical prose, Barry's novel is both a sparkling literary puzzle and a stark cautionary tale of corrupted power. (June)
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*Starred Review* From the first page, Barry’s novel sweeps along like the Garravogue River through Sligo town, taking “the rubbish down to the seas, and bits of things that were once owned by people and pulled from the banks, and bodies, too, if rarely, oh, and poor babies, that were embarrassments, the odd time.” We are in the head and the journal of 100-year-old “mad” Roseanne McNulty, locked up for decades in an asylum in rural west Ireland. She has begun writing her life story, hiding it nightly beneath her bedroom’s creaking floorboards. Simultaneously, her putative therapist, Dr. Grene, who barely knows her, much less her history or prognosis, begins an observation journal about her. The asylum is to be downsized, and he must determine whether she is sane enough to live on her own. He attempts to reconstruct the reasons for her imprisonment, as it turns out to be, and that pitches the novel into the dark depths of Ireland’s civil war and the antiwoman proscriptions on sexuality of the national regime Joyce famously called “priestridden.” Barry weaves together Grene’s and Roseanne’s stories, which are ultimately the same story, masterfully and with intense emotionality that nevertheless refuses to become maudlin. Another notable part of Barry’s artistry is the sheer poetry of his prose, now heart-stoppingly lyrical, now heart-poundingly thrilling. An unforgettable portrait of mid-twentieth-century Ireland. --Patricia Monaghan

Lucky listeners receive the gift of a great narrator and an amazing writer in THE SECRET SCRIPTURE, which was nominated for the 2008 Man Booker Prize. Ninety-nine-year-old Roseanne McNulty has been a patient in an Irish mental hospital for over 50 years. Not apparently crazy, she decides to write her story at the same time that the hospital director begins to interview her. While Rose reexamines a life lived during the Irish "troubles" and within the confines of a sectarian, conformist country, Dr. Grene tells his version of her story. Wanda McCaddon's exquisite reading illuminates the lyrical writing, and brings listeners deep into the book's explosive emotions. Rose's determined Irish lilt, a priest's oily tones, Dr. Grene's fragile neutrality. It's all here, and it's terrific. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Edition details

• Publisher: Faber and Faber
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0571215297
• ISBN 13: 9780571215294
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312