Death and Nightingales

From Publishers Weekly Originally published in England in 1992, McCabe's powerful, gruffly lyrical novel, released for the first time in America, chronicles the struggles of a spunky, courageous young Irish woman in strife-torn Northern Ireland in the 1880s. Beth Winters enters the world with a strike against her: her mother is Catholic and her father is Protestant. Pregnant at the age of 25, Beth thinks back on the wretched existence of her late mother, Catherine, who was constantly badgered by her violent husband, Billy. Though he could never forgive Catherine for a particularly galling act of betrayal, of which Beth is a constant reminder, Billy conceives a grudging love and admiration for Beth. In moments of weakness, his love takes an unpleasant turn, and Beth is driven toward Liam Ward, a young Catholic who hates Billy for his wealth and power. McCabe, equally adept at scenes of furious action and heated intimacy, never lets the reader forget the Catholic-Protestant violence lying beneath the surface, even in the brutal clashes between father and daughter. Beth herself is acutely aware of the contradictions of her birth and heritage. When she finally steals away after a vicious beating by her father, McCabe cleverly sets up the riveting climax of the book, in which Beth is revealed to be as ruthless as Billy. It is the relationship between father and daughter, charged with a bitterly affectionate love and shared cleverness, that drives this novel, a fine book that rarely blinks at the bitter truths of life, loss and war. (Mar.) Forecast: Known as a playwright in the 1970s, McCabe disappeared from the literary scene in the 1980s, only to return in 1992 with Death and Nightingales, a novel accorded high praise by Colm T¢ib¡n and Michael Ondaatje. Strong reviews could give McCabe a fresh start in the U.S.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From The New Yorker This taut novel recounts a day in the life of twenty-five-year-old Elizabeth Winters. The year is 1883, and the name Parnell is on everyone's lips; Beth's mother, a Catholic, is dead, and the truce between the girl and her stepfather, a Protestant landowner, is uneasy. At first, all this seems familiar, if uncommonly well told—an intimate rendering of the smell of meadowsweet and boiled bacon. But after the day encompasses both a botched theft and a drowning—events that illuminate not only Beth's fate but also a nation's saga of violent betrayal—it becomes clear that McCabe has written a heartbreaking modern fable. Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker "...a miracle of a novel..." -- Colm Toibin "...a strong, violent, yet curiously bright work..." -- John Banville "...the finest novel by the greatest living Irish prose writer." -- Alan Warner "A deeply moving, powerful and unforgettable book." -- Michael Ondaatje "Powerful...very good indeed" -- The Bookseller Eugene McCabe was born in Glasgow in 1930. His work includes Heritage and Other Stories and Victims , a short novel which won the Holtby Award from the Royal Society of Literature (1976). Read more