Ghost Light - Hardcover

O'Connor, Joseph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374161879 ISBN 13: 9780374161873

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2011

Synopsis

1907 Edwardian Dublin, a city of whispers and rumors. At the Abbey Theatre W. B. Yeats is working with the talented John Synge, his resident playwright. It is here that Synge, the author of The Playboy of the Western World and The Tinker’s Wedding, will meet an actress still in her teens named Molly Allgood. Rebellious, irreverent, beautiful, flirtatious, Molly is a girl of the inner-city tenements, dreaming of stardom in America. Witty and watchful, she has dozens of admirers, but it is the damaged older playwright who is her secret passion despite the barriers of age, class, education, and religion.

Synge is a troubled, reticent genius, the son of a once prosperous landowning family, a poet of fiery language and tempestuous passions. Yet his life is hampered by conventions and by the austere and God-fearing mother with whom he lives. Scarred by a childhood of immense loneliness and severity, he has long been ill, but he loves to walk the wild places of Ireland. The affair, sternly opposed by friends and family, is turbulent, sometimes cruel, and often tender.

1950s postwar London, an old woman walks across the city in the wake of a hurricane. As she wanders past bomb sites and through the forlorn beauty of wrecked terraces and wintry parks, her mind drifts in and out of the present as she remembers her life’s great love, her once dazzling career, and her travels in America. Vivid and beautifully written, Molly’s swirling, fractured narrative moves from Dublin to London via New York with luminous language and raw feeling. Ghost Light is a story of great sadness and joy—a tour de force from the widely acclaimed and bestselling author of Star of the Sea.

About this title

Review:

"When I think of Ghost Light, the words climb over each other to be first in the queue: brilliant, beautiful, exhilarating, heartbreaking, masterly. It's that good." (Roddy Doyle)

"This is a great ambitious novel about love, loss, lamentation. Joseph O'Connor has the magic touch...I can't imagine many better -- or braver -- novels coming out this year." (Colum McCann)

"A brilliant novel." (Joseph O'Neill)

"As I read Ghost Light, I found myself going more and more slowly, because I didn't want to miss a single sentence. I found myself calling friends and reading passages aloud to them over the phone. This is a rare experience indeed. It is a rare and wonderful book." (Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours)

"Masterful in its management of re-imagined lives and the time they inhabit" (Hugo Hamilton Financial Times)

Book Description:

A powerful and deeply moving masterpiece from the author if the international bestseller Star of the Sea

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0374161879
• ISBN 13: 9780374161873
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 246