Ghost Light
Joseph O´connor
'A virtuoso display of literary talent...brimming with sympathy and skill' Irish Times
Dublin, 1907. A young actress begins an affair with a damaged older man, the leading playwright at the theatre where she works.
Outspoken and flirtatious, Molly Allgood is a Catholic girl from the slums of Dublin, dreaming of stardom in America. Her lover, John Synge, is a troubled genius, whose life is hampered by convention and by the austere and God-fearing mother with whom he lives. Their affair, sternly opposed by friends and family, is quarrelsome, affectionate, and tender.
Many years later, Molly, now a poverty-stricken old woman, makes her way through London's bomb-scarred city streets, alone but for a snowdrift of memories. Her once dazzling career has faded but her unquenchable passion for life has kept her afloat.
'Masterful in its management of re-imagined lives and the time they inhabit' Financial Times
Product Details
About Joseph O´connor
Reviews for Ghost Light
Daily Mail
Throughout a complex structure with shifting timeframes, O'Connor's writing is compellingly beautiful and Molly is marvelously drawn. A captivating read
Guardian
A spellbinding read
The Times
Joseph O'Connor is one of the most exciting novelists of his generation
Daily Mail
A superbly written, magically evocative novel
Scotsman
A virtuoso display of literary talent...brimming with sympathy and skill
Adrian Frazier
Irish Times
Ghost Light...has an astonishing command of voice and period detail, and offers an intimacy with the lives of others which is rare in fiction
Colm Toibin
Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year