A Paris Review Staff Pick: a sweeping, Dickensian story of a young
girl on a life-changing journey across nineteenth-century Ireland on the
eve of the Great Famine.
Early one October morning, Grace's mother snatches her from sleep and
brutally cuts off her hair, declaring, You are the strong one now. With
winter close at hand and Ireland already suffering, Grace is no longer
safe at home. And so her mother outfits her in men's clothing and casts
her out.
When her younger brother Colly follows after her, the two set off on a
remarkable odyssey in the looming shadow of their country's darkest
hour. The broken land they pass through reveals untold suffering as well
as unexpected beauty. To survive, Grace must become a boy, a bandit, a
penitent and, finally, a woman -- all the while afflicted by inner
voices that arise out of what she has seen and what she has lost.
Told in bold and lyrical language by an author who has already been
called one of his generation's very finest novelists (Ron Rash, author
of The Risen), Grace is an epic coming-of-age novel and a poetic
evocation of the Irish famine as it has never been written.
