Book description
Theo Shortcourse has always been overshadowed by his charismatic
nephew, Bain Cross, who is three years older and the favorite of Theo's
beautiful, manipulative mother, Sparrow. Now the corrupt Bain is the
most powerful figure in the Irish Government, and Theo is sought for
murder. As he hides from his pursuers in the river delta, he reflects on
his life and his childhood in the town of Monument. There his fate
became entwined with Bain, Pax Sheehy - to Theo the moral guardian of
his time - and the dark secrets that govern all the characters in his
damaged life, from generation to generation. Wrought in exquisite,
ravishing detail, Tapes of the River Delta' themes of blood and tribe,
politics, church and law, desire, betrayal, violence and guilt reflect
the "blasted hopes of twentieth century Ireland." Tapes of the
River Delta is part of Peter Cunningham's acclaimed Monument series. Set
in the fictionalized landscape of the author's native city of Waterford,
these stories describe Irish people and their lives and loves from the
late nineteenth century to the present day. The novels have been widely
praised in Ireland, the UK and US, and in translation. Peter
Cunningham grew up in Waterford, the city on which Monument, the town in
Tapes of the River Delta is based. His other Monument novels include the
most recent The Sea and the Silence (Gemma 2010); Consequences of the
Heart (Gemma, 2011); and Love in One Edition (London, 2001). In the UK
and Ireland, he has published a number of thrillers, written both under
his own name and under pseudonyms, and the novels Who Trespass Against
Us (London, 1993); Taoiseach (London, 2004); and Capital Sins (Dublin,
2010). Peter Cunningham is a member of Aosdána, the Irish Academy of
Letters.
