On Tuesday, March 18th, Betty S. gave an impressive presentation on award-winning, Dublin-born writer Sebastian Barry. This was Betty’s fifth CWLC presentation and her experience as a presenter and close reader certainly showed. Betty’s research and selected readings brought Barry’s stories to life and had her listeners wanting to hear more.
Sebastian Barry’s novels Days Without End, A Thousand Moons, and The Secret Scripture have garnered great acclaim and have been translated into almost forty languages. Barry credits some of his childhood experiences and family members for influencing his works. From Sligo, Ireland to western United States, Barry’s stories traverse time and place with “detailed descriptions of violence and revenge, unforgettable characters, acts of selflessness, and charming bits of humour.”
In Days without End (2016), seventeen-year-old Thomas McNulty flees the horrors of the Great Famine in Ireland to find himself in the center of the violence and turmoil of the Indian Wars and American Civil War. Warmth and humour make their way into the novel when McNulty meets John Cole, a brother-in-arms and a fellow “saloon girl” dancing for female-deprived miners. The men’s friendship grows into a romantic relationship and then marriage. Barry introduces the orphaned Sioux girl, Winona, who is taken in by McNulty and Cole to create an unusual though loving family. Days Without End is described as brutal, folksy, unsettled, and “a great American novel which happens to have been written by an Irishman.” In addition to other awards, this novel received the celebrated Costa Book Award in 2016.
A Thousand Moons (2020) is a sequel to Days Without End and takes place in Tennessee in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Winona, the novel’s seventeen-year-old narrator and protagonist, tells her story of racism, post-civil war tensions, violence, and young love.
The Secret Scripture (2008) is a prequel to the McNulty and Cole novels. The story is based on a childhood memory of the author with the protagonist, Roseanne McNulty, residing in a mental institution in Sligo, Ireland. The novel was produced into a movie in 2016; however, according to Betty, it falls shy of resembling Barry’s story. Barry received his first Costa Book Award in 2008 for The Secret Scripture.
Barry’s novels On Canaan’s Side, The Temporary Gentleman, and Old God’s Time were briefly discussed. Betty warns that Old God’s Time is a “terribly dark” novel that centers on child abuse within the Catholic church.
Betty’s favourite books are the three discussed in detail, which embrace themes of love and relationships of all sorts and the passage of time.
Posted by Mooréa G.