Reading in the Dark

A novel in which the boy narrator grows up enclosed in two worlds. One is legendary - a Donegal house where children are stolen away by demonic forces; the other is actual - the city of Derry in the Northern Ireland of the 1940s and 1950s, a place haunted by political enmities and family secrets. The boy narrator grows up enclosed in these two worlds, sensing that they are intertwined in some mysterious ways that he both wants and does not want to discover. Through the silence that surrounds him, he feels the truth spreading like a stain until it engulfs him and his family. Claustrophobic but lyrically charged, breathtakingly sad but vibrant and unforgettable, READING IN THE DARK is one of the finest books about growing up - in Ireland or anywhere - that has ever been written.