Days Without End: Sebastian Barry - Softcover

Barry, Sebastian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571340229 ISBN 13: 9780571340224

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2017

Synopsis

Winner of the 2016 Costa Book of the Year
Winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2017
Winner of the Independent Bookshop Week Book Award 2017
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017

'Pitch perfect, the outstanding novel of the Year.' Observer

After signing up for the US army in the 1850s, aged barely seventeen, Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, fight in the Indian Wars and the Civil War. Having both fled terrible hardships, their days are now vivid and filled with wonder, despite the horrors they both see and are complicit in. Then when a young Indian girl crosses their path, the possibility of lasting happiness seems within reach, if only they can survive.

About this title

Review:

A beautiful, savage, tender, searing work of art. Sentence after perfect sentence it grips and does not let go., DONAL RYAN

A true leftfield wonder: Sebastian Barry's Days Without End is a violent, superbly lyrical western offering a sweeping vision of America in the making [and] the most fascinating line-by-line first person narration I've come across in years., KAZUO ISHIGURO

I am a huge fan - nobody writes like, nobody takes lyrical risks like, nobody pushes the language, and the heart, and the two together, quite like Sebastian Barry does, so that you come out of whatever he writes like you've been away, in another climate., ALI SMITH

A book about cruel times, for cruel times. And tender enough to swell your throat ... Not since Peter Carey's Ned Kelly has a narrative voice so got inside my head. -- Tom Sutcliffe, BBC Radio 4

The novel comes close to being a modern masterpiece. Written in a style that is as delicate and economical as a spider's web, it builds to a climax that is as brutally effective as a punch to the gut ... The Secret Scripture and A Long Long Way were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and there is every reason to think that this novel could do just as well next year. It could even go a stage farther. It really is that good. -- Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Times

'Occasionally you know that one of the writers alive at the same time as you has written the book they were born to write. With Barry, it's as if every book he writes is a bit like this - and then there's this novel. It's a masterpiece. Barry writes warmth so that warmth is a form of truth.' -- Ali Smith, Guardian Best Books 2017

'The book that has left the most profound impression on me this year is Sebastian Barry's Days Without End (Faber). It's a love story, a profound dissection of the horrors of war and a lesson in the hidden side of history, but its impact comes from the dense, rich, imaginative use of language. Absolutely captivating.' -- Val McDermid, Guardian Best Books 2017

'Sebastian Barry's Days Without End (Faber) totally captivated me - the voice is compelling and immersive and tells a story that we don't get to hear. Barry faces up to the history of the settlers in America and the slaughter of the Sioux during the American civil war. It is a masterpiece; hypnotic and strange, full of its own music.' -- Jackie Kay, Guardian Best Books 2017

'As for fiction, I came a little late to Sebastian Barry's Days Without End (Faber) but it really is an amazing achievement, especially the brilliantly sustained first-person voice. For page after page, I found myself thinking, how does he do this?' -- David Nicholls, Guardian Best Books 2017

'Two brilliant Irish novels stood out, one lushly lyrical, one laconic, both so well written they make pain into literary delight. Days Without End (Faber), Sebastian Barry's novel of war and defiant love, is as full of outrage and blood and grief as one of Kurosawa's Shakespearean movies and it's as gorgeously beautiful too.' -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Guardian Best Books 2017

Book Description:

Sebastian Barry returns with a sensational new novel set in mid-19th Century America

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0571340229
• ISBN 13: 9780571340224
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336