Book description
Following the end of the First World War, Eneas McNulty joins the
British-led Royal Irish Constabulary. With all those around him
becoming soldiers of a different kind, however, it proves to be the
defining decision of his life when, having witnessed the murder of a
fellow RIC policeman, he is wrongly accused of identifying the
executioners. With a sentence of death passed over him he is forced to
flee Sligo, his friends, family and beloved girl, Viv. What follows is
the story of this flight, his subsequent wanderings, and the haunting
pull of home that always afflicts him. Tender, witty, troubling and
tragic, The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty tells the secret history of a
lost man.
Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. His plays include Boss
Grady's Boys (1988), The Steward of Christendom (1995), Our Lady of
Sligo (1998) and The Pride of Parnell Street (2007). His novels include
The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty (1998), Annie Dunne (2002), A Long Long
Way (2005) and The Secret Scripture (2008). He has won, among other
awards, the Irish-America Fund Literary Award, the Christopher
Ewart-Biggs Prize, the London Critics Circle Award and the Kerry Group
Irish Fiction Prize. A Long Long Way, which was also shortlisted for the
Man Booker Prize and the Dublin International Impac Prize, was the
Dublin: One City One Book choice for 2007. The Secret Scripture won the
Costa Book of the Year award, the Irish Book Awards for Best Novel and
the Independent Booksellers Prize. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker
Prize, Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award, Christopher Ewart-Biggs award
and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He lives in Wicklow with his
wife and three children.
