{"product_id":"9781250002310","title":"Ghost Light : A Novel","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eGhost Light\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Joseph O'Connor\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"This involving novel puts you inside the mind of Molly Allgood, an elderly actress wandering around the brilliantly evoked 1950s London of crumbling lodging houses and uncleared bombsites. Contrasting with the down-at-heel circumstances to which she is reduced are memories, rendered with sensuous freshness and vernacular wit, of her rich past, especially her love affair in 1907 Dublin with the Abbey Theatre playwright John Synge in whose \u003ci\u003eThe Playboy of the Western World \u003c\/i\u003eshe starred.\" \u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003ePeter Kemp, \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eSunday Times \u003c\/i\u003e(London), \"Books of the Year\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A rare and wonderful book.” —\u003ci\u003eMichael Cunningham\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eGhost Light\u003c\/i\u003e is O'Connor's vivid and sometimes visionary reimagining of the love affair between Molly Allgood and the Irish dramatist John Millington Synge….O'Connor rides the wave of Irish eloquence….A jagged lyricism redolent of Seamus Heaney.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Molly's] story comes alive in brilliant bursts of poetic language. She loves, hates, longs for vengeance, and despairs of redemption in luminous prose.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“O'Connor's novel itself is an outstanding example of what the written word can achieve.” —\u003ci\u003eMinneapolis Star Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Enchanting...Moving...Rhapsodically Joycean...Wickedly comic...Readers will be delighted.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Telegraph (London) \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A great ambitious novel about love and loss. Joseph O'Connor has the magic touch, and I can't imagine many better--or braver--novels coming out this year.” —\u003ci\u003eColum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A brilliant novel.” —\u003ci\u003eJoseph O'Neil, author of Netherland\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“When I think of \u003ci\u003eGhost Light\u003c\/i\u003e, the words climb over each other to be first in the queue: brilliant, beautiful, exhilarating, heartbreaking, masterly. It's that good.” —\u003ci\u003eRoddy Doyle, author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It has an astonishing command of voice and period detail, and offers an intimacy with the lives of others that is rare in fiction.” —\u003ci\u003eColm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A spellbinding read.” —\u003ci\u003eAisling Foster, The Times (London)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eGhost Light\u003c\/i\u003e is a tender and compassionate love story, and a fine stepping stone to the majesty of Synge.” —\u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Remarkable, radiant, and captivating . . . On top of the biographical information concerning these two, Synge and his Molly, Joseph O'Connor has imposed a fictional overlay, and makes a vivid performance of it. . . . Deeply and resolutely imagined, \u003ci\u003eGhost Light\u003c\/i\u003e casts its heroine as a charming and robust, playful and wayward young girl, committed to the well-being of the rather difficult and gloomy JM Synge. Molly Allgood, in this version, has a good deal of Molly Bloom in her make-up, and a lively intelligence to boot. . . . In this incarnation, [she] is a figure of great gaiety and aplomb; and O'Connor's novel carries all the pungency and resonance of a particular era of the past.” —\u003ci\u003ePatricoa Craig, The Independent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An entertaining read that carries a touching tale.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Economist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Masterful . . . With his previous novels, \u003ci\u003eStar of the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eRedemption Falls\u003c\/i\u003e, O'Connor carved out a unique way of playing his storyteller's hand over a wide landscape, with the use of invented documentation and textual adventure. \u003ci\u003eGhost Light\u003c\/i\u003e brings that achievement to a new dimension, more specifically located and yet all the more masterful in its management of re-imagined lives and the time they inhabit. . . . The writing is lyrical and moving.'” —\u003ci\u003eHugo Hamilton, The Financial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“With his usual deftness and intelligence, O'Connor brings to life the intense love affair between young actress Molly Allgood and the great Irish playwright JM Synge . . . Brilliant.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Daily Mirror\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Joseph O'Connor's seventh novel, \u003ci\u003eGhost Light\u003c\/i\u003e, will give days of pleasure to tens and tens of thousands of readers. It is a great love story, with extras: a virtuoso display of literary talent, a tribute to the Hiberno-English heritage of lore and lyricism and an interpretation of the Irish literary revival as the fruit of settler and native, Protestant and Catholic. . . . One of the novel's great achievements is not just to display imaginative power but also to show how the imagination works. . . . A stroke of genius.” —\u003ci\u003eAdrian Frazier, Irish Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Engrossing stuff . . . Beautifully written and charming.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Independent on Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What shines in the end is O'Connor's precise style bolstered by quick flashes of his wicked humour. \u003ci\u003eGhost Light\u003c\/i\u003e is a careful, thoughtful story, the worlds of which are impeccably rendered.” —\u003ci\u003eIrish Examiner\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eGhost Light\u003c\/i\u003e is a sad and stirring story of love and loss, and O'Connor skillfully brings to life a brief affair that burned brightly and for Molly, was never extinguished.” —\u003ci\u003eClaire O'Mahony, Irish Sunday Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A tender, haunting tale . . . An original and moving love story.” —\u003ci\u003eMarie Claire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“O'Connor has fashioned a deeply moving, beautifully written story. . . . Admirers of his writing will take pleasure not only in the ambitious range of \u003ci\u003eGhost Light \u003c\/i\u003eand its depth of feeling but also in the nods in the direction of the author's immediately preceding novels, \u003ci\u003eRedemption Falls\u003c\/i\u003e, and, before that, \u003ci\u003eStar of the Sea. \u003c\/i\u003e. . . \u003ci\u003eGhost Light\u003c\/i\u003e stands up to scrutiny on its own terms. It is a profoundly sad story, but triumphant.” —\u003ci\u003eScotland Herald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The author displays typical imaginative virtuosity and emotional depth. . . . As well as being impressively well crafted, the novel is wreathed in language of Joycean richness. [O'Connor's] prose is tuned to a singular lyrical frequency.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Superbly written, magically evocative novel.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Scotsman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eGhost Light\u003c\/i\u003e is a spirited novel. . . . Like her namesake Molly Bloom, Allgood is an earthy, wily and sexually magnetic creation but O'Connor's real feat is in his careful deployment of Hiberno-English by which he not only doffs his cap to Synge but gives flesh and blood to Molly's neglected life story.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Metro\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eGhost Light\u003c\/i\u003e will give days of pleasure to tens and tens of thousands of readers. It is a great love story, with extras: a virtuoso display of literary talent, a tribute to the Hiberno-English heritage of lore and lyricism and an interpretation of the Irish literary revival as the fruit of settler and native, Protestant and Catholic. . . . Brimming with sympathy and skill.” —\u003ci\u003eIrish Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Joseph O'Connor occupies a special place in Irish life. The novel is artfully constructed. . . . O'Connor's evocation of such a difficult, morbid and yet morally beautiful man through the memory of an earthy and vivacious woman is remarkably ambitious and imaginative. \u003ci\u003eGhost Light\u003c\/i\u003e is full of . . . sly pleasures and there is a great deal of broad comedy.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Irish Independent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Lyrical and moving.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWinner Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction Winner (2011), Short-listed Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction Shortlist (2011), Walter Scott Prize Shortlist (2011)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9781250002310\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Picador","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback","offer_id":40627976765646,"sku":"9781250002310","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/getimage_f0e26136-a23d-496e-afc1-0659a97bf22b.jpg?v=1638753232","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9781250002310","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}