Bernard Mac Laverty Libri

Nessuno in famiglia si è mai preso cura del piccolo Owen Kane: né i genitori, né la nonna, né i fratelli maggiori. E la sua vita non diventa certo più facile quando viene rinchiuso in un riformatorio sulla costa irlandese. Qui, per volontà del cinico padre superiore, il cui motto è "educa e sopprimi", Owen vive con i compagni sotto un regime rigidissimo, senza alcuna speranza di recupero o di redenzione. Soltanto padre Sebastian, al secolo Michael Lamb, matura una simpatia nei suoi confronti, e cerca di restituirgli l'affetto che gli è sempre stato negato. Nel pieno di una crisi religiosa, e convinto di agire per il bene di Owen, Michael si lascia tentare dalla fuga: raccoglie il denaro lasciatogli in eredità dal padre, morto da poco, e con il ragazzino si rifugia in Inghilterra, nella speranza di offrirgli un futuro dignitoso. Fra momenti di scoramento e brevi istanti di felicità, i due giungono a Londra, dove passano da un albergo all'altro sotto falso nome, cercano di concedersi qualche svago e cadono talvolta vittime di abili truffatori. Finché il destino che li ha voluti vicini avrà il suo tragico compimento. Con una scrittura tesa, asciutta, Bernard Mac Laverty costruisce un romanzo intenso, in cui il concetto di innocenza viene messo in discussione da un estremo e definitivo atto d'amore. Un romanzo in cui la forza e la sincerità dei sentimenti catturano il lettore fino alla fine.

Set in the Northern Ireland of the 1980’s, Cal tells the story of a young Catholic man living in a Protestant area. For Cal, some choices are devastatingly simple: he can work in an abattoir that nauseates him or join the dole queue; he can brood on his past or plan a future with Marcella. Springing out of the fear and violence of Ulster, Cal is a haunting love story that unfolds in a land where tenderness and innocence can only flicker briefly in the dark.

The extraordinary new story collection from one of Ireland's greatest writers and bestselling author of Mindwinter Break. Bernard MacLaverty is a consummately gifted short-story writer and novelist whose work - like that of John McGahern, William Trevor, Edna O'Brien or Colm Tóibín - is deceptively simple on the surface, but carries a turbulent undertow. Everywhere, the dark currents of violence, persecution and regret pull at his subject matter: family love, the making of art, Catholicism, the Troubles and, latterly, ageing. Blank Pages is a collection of twelve extraordinary new stories that show the emotional range of a master. 'Blackthorns', for instance, tells of a poor out-of-work Catholic man who falls gravely ill in the sectarian Northern Ireland of 1942 but is brought back from the brink by an unlikely saviour. The most recently written story here is the harrowing but transcendent 'The End of Days', which imagines the last moments in the life of painter Egon Schiele, watching his wife dying of Spanish flu - the world's worst pandemic, until now. Much of what MacLaverty writes is an amalgam of sadness and joy, of circumlocution and directness. He never wastes words but neither does he ever forget to make them sing. Each story he writes creates a universe.

Married love, male friendship, a small boy intruding upon secret adult grief, a husband contemplating infidelity - in these wonderful stories Bernard MacLaverty catches his characters at moments of epiphany, when ordinary life is set alight with sudden knowledge, memory, regret or desire.

Bernard Mac Laverty's beautifully turned stories are full of humour, terse realism and moments of touching or shocking surprise. Nelson plays truant and sees something he wishes he hadn't in the title story, 'A Time to Dance'. In Phonefun Limited Sadie and Agnes, retired prostitutes hit upon an inventive new way of making someone happy with a phone call, while in ‘My Dear Palestrina' a remarkable music teacher initiates her pupil into the mysteries of art and maturity.

A collection of short stories by Bernard Mac Laverty. This book was joint winner of the McVitie's Scottish Writer of the Year Award for 1988.

Married love, male friendship, a small boy intruding upon secret adult grief, a husband contemplating infidelity - in these wonderful stories Bernard MacLaverty catches his characters at moments of epiphany, when ordinary life is set alight with sudden knowledge, memory, regret or desire.

The luminous novel by one of the finest living Irish writers, which Brian Moore has praised as "in every sense a triumph

A collection of stories that examines worlds in collision, relationships fragmenting, and innocence face to face with real life, real death.