'This book is so good that it is hard to believe that such a mature work is a first novel…a vivid and very moving attempt to make us kiss the cold realities of individual existence' Daily Express

Jim has come home to the town of his birth on the coast of Donegal in Ireland after working in the canneries of Alaska. Like his friends Knucky and Frances he finds it difficult to escape the ties of the past. Then one day while out fishing he hauls the body of a dead Eskimo up in one of his nets. Jim’s ensuing obsession with tracing the corpse’s origins and discovering how the man died mirrors his search to comprehend the meaning and contours of his life in the tiny coastal town to which he has returned. Drink, loneliness and the price of survival become the major themes in this subtly shaded and superbly handled literary debut from one of the best of the New Irish Writers.

Gerard Beirne is an Irish writer living in Canada. He was awarded the Sunday Tribune/Hennessy Best Emerging Fiction Writer and New Irish Writer awards in 1996. His work has been published in numerous journals, including Stet, Irish national literary magazine, the Sunday Tribune newspaper, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. His story, Sightings of Bono, was adapted into a short film, featuring U2’s Bono, by Parallel Productions, Ireland.

Price: £9.99 / $14.95
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0-7145-3093-X
Fiction