BookwormBy John Andrews
This month I intend to be selective and not, as last month, give you three choices! This is always difficult as there are so many good reads about and one is keen to dip into as many as possible. I have chosen The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry and published in paperback by Faber and Faber.
Barry is an unrivalled chronicler of lost lives. In this book Roseanne’s testimony of herself written during her long stay in Roscommon Regional Mental Health Hospital is a classic case. What is so clever about this book is that the reader not only shares Roseanne’s trials and tribulations as ‘dirt poor’ in Ireland, but also we are treated to Dr Grene’s commentary, being the senior psychiatrist at the hospital. With the mental hospital in the process of being shut down, Dr Grene sets about investigating the history of his longest serving patient Roseanne, who was committed as a young woman and is now nearing her hundredth birthday.
At the same time, Roseanne is looking back on the sadness and tragedies of her early turbulent childhood in rural Ireland. When the truth of Roseanne’s admission to the hospital is uncovered it reveals a secret that shocks them both.
This novel provides tremendous entertainment with luminous anecdotes, hidden truths and necessary fictions. Barry’s prose is at once immediate, uplifting and without any hint of sentimentality.
As Barry is new to me as a writer, I will now start his highly acclaimed book A Long Way. Perhaps you will hear more of this next month.