Grace Notes. This item is unavailable.
bernard maclaverty, Bernard Mac Laverty
Language: English
Published by VINT, 1998
- Softcover
- Used
Seller: Barksdale Books, Almere, NetherlandsBarksdale Books
AbeBooks seller since August 5, 2025
Condition: Used - Good
US$ 11.58
Item description from seller
Returning to Belfast after a long absense, to attend her father`s funeral. This is a novel, about coming to terms with the past and the healing power of music, GRACE NOTES is a master story-teller`s triumphant return to the long form: a powerful lyrical novel of great distinction. Returning to Belfast after a long absense, to attend her father`s funeral. Catherine McKenna-a young composer-remembers exactly why she left: the claustrophobic intimacies of the Catholic enclave, her fastidious, nagging mother, and the pervading tensions of a city at war with itself. She remembers a more innocent time, when the Loyalists Lambeg drums sounded mysterious and exciting; she remembers her shattered relationship with the drunken, violent Dave, she remembers the child she had with him, waiting back in Glasgow. This is a novel, about coming to terms with the past and the healing power of music, GRACE NOTES is a master story-teller`s triumphant return to the long form: a powerful lyrical novel of great distinction.; Direct uit voorraad leverbare paperbackmet fris en schoon binnenwerk. Recht boekblok. Gaaf omslag, met een enkel leeslijntje in de rug. Onderkant rugiets slijtage.…
Seller Inventory # 904662
- Title
- Grace Notes
- Author
- bernard maclaverty, Bernard Mac Laverty
- Publisher
- VINT
- Publication year
- 1998
- Condition
- Good
- Binding
- Soft cover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0099778017
- ISBN 13
- 9780099778011
- Seller catalogs
- Language and culture: general
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review
Grace Notes, MacLaverty's first novel since Cal, is as much about Irish identity--and possibility--as it is about art. Catherine's newest piece, a mass, includes the huge drums Protestants play in parades. "It was a scary sound--like thunder. Like the town was under a canopy of dark noise." Though her fellow Catholics see the drums as instruments of threat, Catherine is determined to integrate them into her composition.
Her return to Belfast for her father's funeral brings back several ghosts, among them an influential professor who spoke of grace notes--"the notes between the notes." This novel is full of such instances, wry snatches of conversation and unforgettable observations: the new Chinese restaurant that has had to offer chips to stay in business, or the pub that's "on a slight hill. When dogs pissed at the door the dark lines ran diagonally to the gutter." These transcend the occasional passage in which MacLaverty tries too hard to see into the life and rhythms of a female artist. The final section, however, a live radio concert of Catherine's piece, is a triumph for both woman composer and male author.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.