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The Secret Scripture
by: Sebastian Barry

List Price: $24.95

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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780670019403
ISBN: 0670019402
Label: Viking Adult
Manufacturer: Viking Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: June 12, 2008
Publisher: Viking Adult
Studio: Viking Adult
Sales Rank: 6050

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
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.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- ....Complexity befalls this Irish-Catholic family....
While Sebastian Barry is new to me, it didn't stop me from enjoying this book.

A great writer with a great story to tell.

The scene is set in the Irish-Catholic realm and features a highly devote family centering around Roseanne Clear, the daughter of a well-respected man named Joe. After a dark and cloudy night the family suffers some hardships and young Roseanne seeks to fly from her nest only to be stricken with more hardship.

....Complexity befalls this Irish-Catholic family....

Rating:

- another fine book by Sebastian Barry
ebastian Barry has done it again. I love his work and this one is no exception. I couldn't even talk after I finished this book (which is rare...I always have something to say, just ask my husband!), and I was a wee bit choked up. So...you may want to have a tissue at the ready. I read this in just about 3 hours and couldn't stop reading it except to fetch cookies I was baking out of the oven every 12 minutes. A beautiful book and one that really made me a bit angry when I think about it...the treatment of this young woman by a Catholic priest was just sad.

Basic plot: Roseanne Clear McNulty is probably a hundred years old, and lives in a mental institution which is about to be torn down. She is being assessed by the head of the place, a Dr. Grene, who has to decide if she's able ... Read More

Rating:

- perhaps the best ive read this year
the other reviews have covered it, except I would add that Barry's insights into the nature and functions of memory are profoundly interesting to me as a human being and as a historian. Read it.

Rating:

- The Perfect Summer Read
This is the best book I've read since "The Kite Runner"! Written by an Irish author, it has the expected tragedy and angst, but it's the beauty of the storytelling that lifts this book above so many other "recommended" fiction books I've read this year. It was one of those rare books that kept me ignoring items on my "To Do" list so I could sneak in another chapter before bedtime. Regretfully, it was only 300 pages, which flew by much too quickly. I'm glad I have Barry's "The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty" on hand to turn to next. However, since "The Secret Scripture" included the character of Eneas in the plot, I wish I'd read that book first.

Rating:

- An elegant and intelligent novel of love, murder, betrayal and sacrifice
Growing up in Ireland, during the Great War, golden-haired Roseanne Clear adores her Presbyterian father, Joe, a happy and curious individual who is the "cleanest man in the Christian world, all Sligo anyhow." Her mother, Cissy, is an anxious woman who "suffers strangely under the halo of beauty." The greatest joy of Roseanne's young life is walking with her exotic-looking mother at dusk to meet her father on his way home from a local Catholic cemetery, where he works as superintendent.

But death arrives unannounced at the Clears' doorstep when the Irish troubles come calling at the cemetery. After that dark and disturbing night, Roseanne's young life, and that of her family, changes forever. Shortly afterwards, Father Gaunt, a local priest who has "no antennae for grief," informs ... Read More

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