Niall Williams crafts narratives that delve into the profound landscapes of human connection and the search for meaning, often set against the evocative backdrop of the Irish countryside. His prose is characterized by a lyrical quality and a deep empathy for the intricacies of the human spirit. Williams explores the complexities of love, loss, and longing, as his characters navigate the intricacies of life and strive to find their place within it. His work resonates with a timeless wisdom and a melancholic beauty that captures the hearts of readers worldwide.
Set in the small town of Faha during the Christmas season of 1962, the story follows Doctor Jack Troy, whose role as a caregiver isolates him from the community. His daughter, Ronnie, struggles with missed opportunities for love and feels overshadowed by her father's responsibilities. Their lives take a transformative turn when a baby is unexpectedly left in their care, prompting a profound reevaluation of family and community ties. The novel explores themes of second chances, connection, and the richness of life amid hardship.
'Poignant ... A meditation on life, love and the importance of nature' IRISH TIMES When they were in their twenties, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave New York City and move to Christine's ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening and living a life that followed the rhythms of the earth. In 2019, with Christine in the final stages of recovery from cancer and the surrounding land threatened by the arrival of turbines, Niall and Christine decided to document a year - in words and Christine's drawings - of living in their garden and in their small corner of a rapidly changing world. Proceeding month by month through the year, this is the story of a garden in all its many splendours, and a couple who have made their life observing its wonders.
Shortlisted for Best Novel in the Irish Book Awards Longlisted for the 2020 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction From the acclaimed author of Man Booker-longlisted History of the Rain 'Lyrical, tender and sumptuously perceptive' Sunday Times 'A love letter to the sleepy, unhurried and delightfully odd Ireland that is all but gone' Irish Independent After dropping out of the seminary, seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe finds himself back in Faha, a small Irish parish where nothing ever changes, including the ever-falling rain. But one morning the rain stops and news reaches the parish - the electricity is finally arriving. With it comes a lodger to Noel's home, Christy McMahon. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed. As Noel navigates his coming-of-age by Christy's side, falling in and out of love, Christy's buried past gradually comes to light, casting a glow on a small world and making it new.
Nicholas Coughlan and Isabel Gore were made for each other but how will they ever know it? This is a story about destiny, acceptance and the tragedies and miracles of everyday life.
We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. In Faha, County Clare, everyone is a long story... Bedbound in her attic room beneath the falling rain, in the margin between this world and the next, Plain Ruth Swain is in search of her father. To find him, enfolded in the mystery of ancestors, Ruthie must first trace the jutting jaw lines, narrow faces and gleamy skin of the Swains from the restless Reverend Swain, her great-grandfather, to grandfather Abraham, to her father, Virgil - via pole-vaulting, leaping salmon, poetry and the three thousand, nine hundred and fifty eight books piled high beneath the two skylights in her room, beneath the rain. The stories - of her golden twin brother Aeney, their closeness even as he slips away; of their dogged pursuit of the Swains' Impossible Standard and forever falling just short; of the wild, rain-sodden history of fourteen acres of the worst farming land in Ireland - pour forth in Ruthie's still, small, strong, hopeful voice. A celebration of books, love and the healing power of the imagination, this is an exquisite, funny, moving novel in which every sentence sings.
Longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize, this novel follows Ruthie Swain, a bedridden daughter of a poet, as she seeks connection through family stories and her father's library. In her attic, she writes about Ireland's landscapes and histories, uncovering tales that may revive her spirit and reconnect her with the world.
A novel that is simultaneously a universal story about love in all its forms and guises, and an intimate love letter from a husband to his wife Jim Foley loves his parents, his brother, his sister, Dickens and God; later, he loves Kateenough to make her his wife and to shape his life around herand later still, he loves his children, Jack and Hannah. Only Say the Word tells Jims story, and the story of the people and places in his life, as he moves from childhood to marriage and fatherhood, from early days spent in County Clare to early adulthood in America, and back to Clare once more. Deeply personal and written in his lyrical, lilting prose, Niall Williamss fourth novel is about unspoken emotions, undying devotion and blind faithbut, ultimately, about the redeeming, enduring nature of love.
Beginning in Ireland in the early years of the 19th century, the four Foley brothers flee across the country with their father and the large telescope he has stolen. Soon forced apart by the violence of the Irish wilderness, the potato famine, and the promise of America, the brothers find themselves scattered across the world. Their separate adventures unfold in passionate and vivid scenes with gypsies, horse races, sea voyages, and beautiful women. An epic narrative on the meaning of love and home and family, The Fall of Light is a dazzling novel by one of the most promising novelists writing today.
