The Dead School - Hardcover

McCabe, Patrick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385314205 ISBN 13: 9780385314206

Publisher: Doubleday, 1995

Synopsis

In his new novel, The Dead School, McCabe returns to the same rich, emotionally dense landscape of small-town Ireland that made The Butcher Boy unforgettable. Here he explores the inner lives of two men, each the product of a soul-stifling culture, each battling his own demons of loss and betrayal.
When Malachy Dudgeon, a bright, sensitive child, discovers his mother's infidelities and his father's standing as the town cuckold, he is doomed forever to believe that the only place for love is "in the grave." Decades earlier in a different town, "goody-goody" Raphael Bell decides to forego the priesthood and become a teacher. Years pass and Bell thrives in his chosen profession, becoming Headmaster - until times begin to change. New ideas are invading the strict provincial Catholic culture he loves, unhinging old ways, pulling Ireland and an unwilling Bell into the future. Along with them comes Malachy Dudgeon, now grown and teaching at Bell's school, distracted to the point of madness by an adult love of his own - a love most definitely "in the grave." Tension coils - until tragedy strikes a student in their charge and the latent despair, rage and helplessness lying below the surface of the two men explode, ending in a denouement of heartbreaking, startling power.

About this title

Book Description:

‘The best Irish novel of the decade’ Sunday Telegraph

About the Author:

Patrick McCabe was born in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland in 1955. He is the author of the children's story The Adventures of Shay Mouse, and the novels Music on Clinton Street, Carn, The Butcher Boy (winner of the Irish Times/Aer Lingus Literature Prize and shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize), The Dead School , Breakfast on Pluto (shortlisted for the 1998 Booker Prize), Mondo Desperando, Emerald Germs of Ireland and Call Me The Breeze. He lives in Monaghan.

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0385314205
• ISBN 13: 9780385314206
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1