Reading in the Dark

Informationen zum Autor Seamus Deane Klappentext A New York Times Notable Book Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize Winner of the Irish Times Fiction Award and International Award "A swift and masterful transformation of family griefs and political violence into something at once rhapsodic and heartbreaking. If Issac Babel had been born in Derry, he might have written this sudden, brilliant book." --Seamus Heaney Hugely acclaimed in Great Britain, where it was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize and short-listed for the Booker, Seamus Deane's first novel is a mesmerizing story of childhood set against the violence of Northern Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s. The boy narrator grows up haunted by a truth he both wants and does not want to discover. The matter: a deadly betrayal, unspoken and unspeakable, born of political enmity. As the boy listens through the silence that surrounds him, the truth spreads like a stain until it engulfs him and his family. And as he listens, and watches, the world of legend--the stone fort of Grianan, home of the warrior Fianna; the Field of the Disappeared, over which no gulls fly--reveals its transfixing reality. Meanwhile the real world of adulthood unfolds its secrets like a collection of folktales: the dead sister walking again; the lost uncle, Eddie, present on every page; the family house "as cunning and articulate as a labyrinth, closely designed, with someone sobbing at the heart of it." Seamus Deane has created a luminous tale about how childhood fear turns into fantasy and fantasy turns into fact. 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. Leseprobe chapter 1 STAIRS February 1945 On the stairs, there was a clear, plain silence. It was a short staircase, fourteen steps in all, covered in lino from which the original pattern had been polished away to the point where it had the look of a faint memory. Eleven steps took you to the turn of the stairs where the cathedral and the sky always hung in the window frame. Three more steps took you on to the landing, about six feet long. "Don't move," my mother said from the landing. "Don't cross that window." I was on the tenth step, she was on the landing. I could have touched her. "There's something there between us. A shadow. Don't move. I had no intention. I was enthralled. But I could see no shadow. "There's somebody there. Somebody unhappy. Go back down the stairs, son." I retreated one step. "How'll you get down?" "I'll stay a while and it will go away." "How do you know?" "I'll feel it gone." "What if it doesn't go?" "It always does. I'll not be long." I stood there, looking up at her. I loved her then. She was small and anxious, but without real fear. "I'm sure I could walk up there to you, in two skips." "No, no. God knows. It's bad enough me feeling it; I don't want you to as well." "I don't mind feeling it. It's a bit like the smell of damp clothes, isn't it?" She laughed. "No, nothing like that. Don't talk yourself into believing it. Just go downstairs." I went down, excited, and sat at the range with its red heart fire and black lead dust. We were haunted! We had a ghost, even in the middle of the afternoon. I heard her moving upstairs. The house was all cobweb tremors. No matter where I walked, it yielded before me and settled behind me. She came down after a bit, looking white. "Did you see anything?" "No, nothing, nothing at all. It's just your old mother with her nerves. All imagination. There's nothing there." I was up at the window before she could say anything more, but there was nothing there. I stared into the moiling darkness. I heard the clock in the bedroom clicking and th...

Détails du produit

• Auteurs: Seamus Deane
• Edition: Vintage USA
• Langues: Anglais
• Format d'édition: Livre de poche
• Sortie: 24.02.1998
• EAN: 9780375700231
• ISBN: 978-0-375-70023-1
• Pages: 245
• Dimensions: 133 mm x 216 mm x 19 mm
• Thèmes: Vintage International; Vintage International
• Catégorie: Littérature > Littérature (récits)