Set in Ireland in the 1990s, Colm Tóibín's The Blackwater Lightship tells the story of the Devereux family, and reveals the intense connection between grandmother, mother and daughter.
Dora Devereux, her daughter Lily and her granddaughter Helen – have come together after years of strife and reached an uneasy truce. Helen’s adored brother Declan is dying. Two friends join him and the women in a crumbling old house by the sea, where the six of them, from different generations and with different beliefs, must listen and come to terms with one another.
'It is in his emotional choreography that Tóibín shows himself to be an exceptional writer' – Sunday Telegraph
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 9780330389860
Number of pages: 288
Weight: 202 g
Dimensions: 195 x 129 x 21 mm
This is the most astonishing piece of writing, lyrical in its emotion and spare in its construction . . . Tóibín has crafted an unmissable read. - Sunday Herald
It is in his emotional choreography that Tóibín shows himself to be an exceptional writer. Helen is estranged from both her mother and grandmother . . . Tóibín helps them make peace – and he does it beautifully. - Sunday Telegraph
He writes in spare, powerful prose and he is truly perceptive about family relationships which, at times, makes reading his stories incredibly painful. But this is a beautiful novel. - Belfast News
We shall be reading and living with The Blackwater Lightship in twenty years. - Independent on Sunday
Never heard of this author before, and this is the first book of his that I have read.
It is set in Ireland, and is centred around three estranged generations of the same family that are thrust back together as the...
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Colm Tóibín brillianting creates a uniquely Irish atmosphere and draws out real emotion in his characters and the reader.
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