Reading In The Dark

Description for READING IN THE DARK by Seamus Deane:

Set in postwar Northern Ireland, where the unquiet ghosts of the Troubles walk alongside the warriors and changelings of Celtic legend, Seamus Deane's first novel is the transfixing story of a boy trying to uncover the secrets of the adult world. And in Reading in the Dark, every adult has a secret -- of family feuds and political treachery, unexplained disappearances and unsolved murders, and of sorrow so bitter that it is passed down through generations.

Deane's unnamed narrator searches for the truth amid a forest of rumors and legends: of an uncle who may have died a hero of the IRA or absconded to America; of a grandfather who may have killed one man and ordered the deaths of many more; of a child who comes back from the grave and of two others who vanish into one amid an unholy blaze of greenish light. As orchestrated by Deane, these events coalesce into a work of unforgettable power, written in ravishing prose and overflowing with tenderness, sadness, menace, and dark wit.