Days without end : a novel / Sebastian Barry.
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2017Copyright date: ©2016Description: 259 pages ; 20 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780143111405
- 014311140X
Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | Bedford Public Library Fiction | Fiction | F BAR | Available | 32500005464368 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD WINNER
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE
"A true leftfield wonder: Days Without End is a violent, superbly lyrical western offering a sweeping vision of America in the making." --Kazuo Ishiguro, Booker Prize-winning author
From the two-time Booker Prize finalist Sebastian Barry, "a master storyteller" ( Wall Street Journal ) and author of Old God's Time , a powerful chronicle of duty and family set against the American Indian and Civil Wars
Thomas McNulty, aged barely seventeen and having fled the Great Famine in Ireland, signs up for the U.S. Army in the 1850s. With his brother in arms, John Cole, Thomas goes on to fight in the Indian Wars--against the Sioux and the Yurok--and, ultimately, the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, the men find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in.
Moving from the plains of Wyoming to Tennessee, Sebastian Barry's latest work is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language. An intensely poignant story of two men and the makeshift family they create with a young Sioux girl, Winona, Days Without End is a fresh and haunting portrait of the most fateful years in American history and is a novel never to be forgotten.
"First published in Great Britain by Faber & Faber Limited"--Title page verso.
"First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2016"--Title page verso.
Entering the U.S. army after fleeing the Great Famine in Ireland, seventeen-year-old Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, experience the harrowing realities of the Indian wars and the American Civil War between the Wyoming plains and Tennessee.
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Library Journal Review
An unlikely love story between Irish immigrant Thomas McNulty and his younger friend John Cole, this new work is set on the American frontier in the mid 1800s, and its depth and beauty bring to mind the great prairie novels of Willa Cather. Thomas and John meet when they join the army together in 1851, and they soon are sent to fight Native Americans in Missouri. During the course of the novel, they witness massacres, participate in grisly Civil War battles, and end up adopting an orphaned Native girl as their daughter. Thomas is the narrator, and his voice sings from the page in an appealing blend of gritty vernacular, unschooled syntax, and rough-hewn poetry as he bears witness to the awesome beauty of the American landscape and the savagery in the hearts of men. Barry, twice short-listed for the Man Booker Prize (A Long Long Way; The Secret Scripture), offers a meditation on the nature of what it means to be an American, and his conclusions are both complex and fearless. Verdict A beautifully realized historical novel; enthusiastically recommended for all fans of literary fiction.-Patrick Sullivan, -Manchester Community Coll., CT © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Sebastian Barry is a playwright whose work has been produced in London, Dublin, Sydney, and New York. He lives in Wicklow, Ireland, with his wife and three children.