Secret Scripture - Softcover

Barry, Sebastian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571215300 ISBN 13: 9780571215300

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2008

Synopsis

Nearing her one-hundredth birthday, and facing the closure of the mental institution where she's spent most her adulthood, Roseanne relates her astonishing life to psychiatrist Dr Grene. Told through their respective journals, the story that emerges is at once shocking and deeply beautiful. Exquisitely written, it is the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and ignorance, and yet marked still by love, passion and hope.

About this title

Review

The acclaim that has greeted Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture is varied and enthusiastic, and it's not hard to see why. When Frank McGuiness praised it for ‘raw, rough beauty’ and described Sebastian Barry's fiction as ‘unique’ and ‘magnificent’, this claim was no hostage to fortune; just a few sentences of the prose here will convince most readers of the justice of those words. As in the best-selling A Long Long Way, Barry is concerned with the imperatives of telling a story, but in a literary form that is rich with both psychological understanding and a skilful conjuring of time and place.

Roseanne McNulty may (or may not) be on the point of nearing her 100th birthday -- but there is little certainty about this fact. In her twilight years, her destiny is uncertain, as the Roscommon Mental Hospital -- her home for so many years of her life -- is on the point of closing. As the fateful hour approaches, Roseanne spends her time of talking to her psychiatrist of many years, Dr Grene. The relationship between the two is strangely interdependent, and the doctor is also attempting to come to terms with the death of his wife. As we learn more about the two principal protagonists, we are presented with a rich and subtle picture of human relationships -- and the (often unintentional) damages that we all do to each other.

The form of the book consists of the separate journals of Roseanne and Dr Grene, and we gradually learn about Roseanne’s family in Sligo in the 1930s. What emergence is a poignant personal history; it is also a subtly ambitious picture of nothing less than the Irish psyche at a particular point in its history. There are echoes here of another great Irish chronicler of the human condition, William Trevor, and The Secret Scripture is no worse for that. --Barry Forshaw

Review

'Roseanne McNulty is almost a century old and has been imprisoned in a mental institution in the west of Ireland for many decades. But with the hospital facing closure, her psychiatrist Dr Grene conducts a series of interviews with her to assess her suitability for release into the community. Through the accounts that each of them keep of their meetings, Sebastian Barry allows a horrifying tale of death, duplicity and deception to unfold, as it becomes clear Roseanne has become tragically enmeshed in the tangles web of Ireland's history, politics and religion.' (London Review of Books)

'People persist with ordinary life, because there is no other sort of life." Yet ordinary lives meander and circle and overflow and sometimes turn upside down; none of which can even begin to give a flavour of the breathtaking sinuosity of Sebastian Barry's fourth novel. It is narrated by Roseanne McNulty, who has been in a mental hospital for much of her life, and by her psychiatrist Dr Grene. Roseanne is ancient - maybe 100, nobody knows - and her doctor is distracted, both by grief at the death of his wife and alarm at the imminent closure of his asylum. They are, as the saying has it, a right pair; and they carry our interest and empathy as the storyline shifts and twists along the byways of Irish history and the ancient, secret paths of the human mind. The bookies' favourite for last year's Man Booker Prize, The Secret Scripture has just won the overall 2008 Costa Book of the Year award. "Exquisite...mesmerising...memorable...unique". Take your pick of the adjectives; just don't be put off by the hype. This is a great book by, arguably, our greatest living novelist.'

(Irish Times)

'Roseanne McNulty is almost the last denizen of a soon-to-be demolished asylum. No one knows how old she is, and no one can remember why she was committed in the first place. She knows, however, and tells her story to a manuscript which she keeps hidden. She remembers Sligo in her childhood and youth; her kindly Presbyterian father, a gravedigger; her Catholic neighbours, seemly but wary in their dealings with her family. Then comes the Irish Civil War, and the bloody cut drawn between family and friends in the cause of an Independent Ireland. Roseanne's mother goes mad, and events in this novel spiral ever further into chaos and pain. Roseanne's own - temporary - salvation comes in marriage to a jazz singer, who restores what love and order he can to her life. The shades of malevolent obscurantism are still abroad, however, and so she finds herself where she is. In the present, Dr Grene, a psychiatrist, has his own hidden text. He and Roseanne tell the story between them, in sweet, pellucid prose.' (Independent on Sunday)

'Barry ... conjures up some exquisitely bleak scenes, and there is plenty of shame, religious mania and, of course, a very scary priest. Its strongest passages are those that deal with exploration of memory, and how it leads us down some strange byways, creating some fantastic twists.' (London Lite)

'This superb exploration of the ways in which time, place and circumstance can have a devastating impact on someone's life has just won the Costa Book of the Year Award and deservedly so ... Barry's prose is simply beautiful. (Northern Echo)

I would recommend this book to others ... I found it hard to put down.' (Woman’s Way (Reader review))

'A beautiful, brave, important novel that ... directly challenges the worst acts of his country committed in the name of religion.' (Guardian)

'A critical success ... and it's easy to see why. The Secret Scripture is tremendous entertainment, a novel that not only withstands, but demands, revisiting ... Barry's narrative is a gorgeous patchwork of luminous anecdotes, hidden truths and necessary fictions. Each word is weighted, and yet there is no sense of ponderousness: indeed, this is one of the few brave novels to insist on the persistence of joy.' (Observer)

'An astonishing story, told with sadness and grace, full of gleaming images ... [the book's] achievement - the rich, enduring voice of Roseanne - is remarkable.' (The Times)

'This is a powerfully poetic individual epic that illuminates the history of a 'country of cupboards, every one with a skeleton in it'. (’ Sunday Telegraph)

'When this book won the Costa Book of the Year last year, the judges qualified the award with the odd, ungracious statement that the book was nonetheless ''flawed''. Ignore them. Barry's novel is a marvel: exquisitely written, utterly riveting ... with Roseanne, Barry creates an unforgettable narrative voice, and turns what could be a story of woe into a profound and uplifting experience.' (Thelondonpaper)

'For anyone who has yet to read it, this one is a must ... it's exquisitely written and full of love and hope in spite of the subject matter.' (Irish Independent)

'Matthew Parris's sabotage last week of Sebastian Barry after he won the Costa Award was a low point in the history of sniping by thwarted judges. With luck, the row will mean even more readers for this exquisite, distressing yet serene novel of an Irish life wrecked by the forces of repression but sunk in part by the sheer mystery of people and their past.' (Independent)

Edition details

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0571215300
• ISBN 13: 9780571215300
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312