Description

Rural West Cork Ireland Two Kids Joseph and Paul and their struggling poet father Fraser are battling grief and poverty When a letter arrives with a summons to Dublin and the promise of publication it offers a chink of light the hope of rescue But Dublin is a long wet and hungry way from West Cork in the mid70s especially when they have no money just the clothes they stand up in and an old battered suitcase

So begins an almost antiroadtrip of flipsides and contradictions dreams and nightmares promises and disappointments generosity and meanness unconditional love and shocking neglect

In simple beautiful lyrical prose James Yorkstons new novel takes us on that trip as seen through the eyes of a brave and resourceful but poor and frightened child It tells of the emptying paralysing pain of grief and loss tempered only by the hope of rescue and the redemption of parental love It also tells of Frasers love for his childrens dead mother as hidden within the battered suitcase is Frasers heartbreaking collection of poems The Book of the Gaels