Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread PrizeThe luminous novel by one of the finest living Irish writers, which Brian Moore has praised as "in every sense a triumph…moving throughout and ending triumphantly and joyously in its own special music."Grace Notes is a compact and altogether masterful portrait of a woman composer and the complex interplay between her life and her art. With superb artistry and startling intimacy, it brings us in...

Shortlisted for the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award"[A] wrenchingly intimate depiction of a couple in the chilly, hibernal years of their marriage…[A book] with rare and unexpected beauty." — Wall Street JournalWith Midwinter Break, a moving portrait of retired couple Gerry and Stella Gilmore's marriage in crisis, Bernard MacLaverty reminds us why he is regarded as one of the greatest living Irish writers. Through accurate, compass...

" Lamb will move you by the grace of its prose and by its honesty and emotional accuracy. It is not easy to write about innocence in a world like ours but Bernard MacLaverty has done it. This is a beautiful novel." —John Gabree, NewsdayWhen Brother Sebastian, nee Michael Lamb, runs away from a bleak reformatory, taking with him twelve-year-old Owen Kane, the media and the police call it a kidnapping. For Lamb, though, it is a rescue of a formerly ...

A rich collection of short stories by one of Ireland's contemporary literary masters.This long-awaited new collection from the noted Irish writer Bernard MacLaverty examines worlds in collision, relationships fragmenting, innocence coming face to face with real life and real death. A Catholic schoolboy playing football has a theological debate with a Protestant policeman; a chess game in Spain is a catalyst for grief and redemption; in the haunting title story a Be...

"MacLaverty's tales are poised and beautifully balanced, outward yet intimate, graced by both subtlety and substance."— The IndependentA new book from Bernard MacLaverty is a cause for celebration, but Matters of Life and Death is more than that. It is the finest collection yet from a contemporary master of the form.Beginning with the sudden terror of a family caught up in shocking sectarian violence, and ending with the whiteout of an Iowa...

"Bernard MacLaverty's powerful novel is a love story as affecting and tragic as you could want." — USA TodayWhen it was first published, Bernard MacLaverty's masterpiece was hailed by Michael Gorra in the New York Times Book Review as "a marvel of technical perfection…a most moving novel whose emotional impact is grounded in a complete avoidance of sentimentality…[It] will become the Passage to India of the Troubles." For Cal, a Northern ...

A Library Journal Best Book of 2022 in Short Stories"A deft and life-affirming collection by a master of the form."—Sarah Gilmartin, Irish TimesA collection of twelve powerful and moving new stories from one of Ireland's most celebrated writers.Tinged with melancholy but rooted in resiliency, the exquisite stories of Bernard MacLaverty's Blank Pages display the perseverance of the human spirit. In "A Love Picture," a middle-...

‘Characters all but leap off the page with believability in these marvellous stories of life (and death) in Belfast’ Sunday TimesMelding his native Irish sensibilities to those of his adopted west-coast Scotland, these tales attend to life’s big events: love and loss, separation and violence, death and betrayal. But the stories teem with smaller significant moments too – private epiphanies, chilling exchanges, intimate encounters. Each of these extraordina...

On a promontory jutting out into the Atlantic wind stands the Home run by Brother Benedict, where boys are taught a little of God and a lot of fear. To Michael Lamb, one of the youngest brothers, the regime is without hope, and when he inherits a small legacy he defies his elders and runs away, taking with him a twelve-year-old boy, Owen Kane. Radio Eireann call it a kidnapping. For Michael the act is the beginning of Owen's salvation. Posing as father and son, they concentrate on discover...

A coming-of-age story of a northern Irish boy getting out from under the thumb of mother, church, and country.Set in Belfast in the late sixties, Bernard MacLaverty's new novel takes us into Martin Brennan's last semester of high school, when he finds old friendships tested and is forced to face the unknown. Before he can become an adult, Martin must unravel the sacred and contradictory mysteries of religion, science, and sex; he must learn the value of friendship;...

Gerry, once an architect, is forgetful and set in his ways. Stella is tired of his lifestyle and angry at his constant undermining of her religious faith. Things are not helped by memories that resurface of a troubled time in their native Ireland. As their vacation comes to an end, we understand how far apart they are—and can only watch as they struggle to save themselves.Bernard MacLaverty is a master storyteller, and this is the essential MacLaverty novel: compassionate observati...

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFINALIST FOR THE LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE AND THE JOHN LEONARD PRIZENAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, NPR, AND USA TODAY"Impossible to put down." —NPR"A novel that readers will gulp down, gasping.” —The Washington Post"The word 'masterpiece' has been cheapened by too many blurbs, but My Absolute Darling absolutely is one." —Stephen King