I would happily read Sebastian Barry’s shopping list and probably write a review of it! He has the gift of insight finding within the trivia of everyday life, the core truths which makes each of our lives unique and precious. The post-its littering the pages of my copy of On Canaan’s Side proves my point.

On Canaan’s Side once again visits the Dunne family first met in the 1990 play, The Steward of Christendom, and again in the novels Annie Dunne and A Long Long Way. His award-winning novel The Secret Scripture was Queen Anne Books book club book of the year and I was struck by the similarities between that novel and this latest. Both are first person narratives of self-proclaimed Irish crones nearing the end of their lives who decide to write down their long and often mournful stories (they are Irish, after all).

“First Day Without Bill” (Chapter 1) begins, “Bill is gone. What is the sound of an eighty-nine-year-old heart breaking? It might not be much more than silence, and certainly a small slight sound.” Bill was Lilly Dunne Bere’s beloved grandson who, after returning from the first Gulf War, commits suicide. Lilly then takes sixteen more chapters to recount the joys and sorrows of her long life hoping to understand why she is still alive when Bill is gone. She begins at the beginning, recounting her childhood with her doting father and two sisters and the death of her brother Willie in WWI. By the end, she has recounted the fates of her two marriages, her son and her grandson — a life rich in 20th century history. We also learn in the very first chapter that Lilly no longer feels she has anyone to live for and also plans to take her own life and find ourselves hoping that in the storytelling, she will find a reason to live.
An extraordinary novel rich with life. ~Patti