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| The Secret Scripture | 
 enlarge | Author: Sebastian Barry
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95 (€19.71)
Buy New: $8.99 (€7.10)
You Save: $15.96 (€12.61) (64%)
Buy New/Used from $8.79 (€6.94)
Avg. Customer Rating:  (16 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1533
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2
ISBN: 0670019402
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780670019403
ASIN: 0670019402
Publication Date: June 12, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Cheated by the Ending September 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
What a beautifully written novel. It's amazing how Barry made Roseanne such a wonderful, interesting character. But for me, the novel was ruined by a cheap, melodramatic ending. There was no need for it. Otherwise it would have been a 5.
 ....Complexity befalls this Irish-Catholic family.... August 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
While Sebastian Barry is new to me, it didn't stop me from enjoying this book.
A great writer with a great story to tell.
The scene is set in the Irish-Catholic realm and features a highly devote family centering around Roseanne Clear, the daughter of a well-respected man named Joe. After a dark and cloudy night the family suffers some hardships and young Roseanne seeks to fly from her nest only to be stricken with more hardship.
....Complexity befalls this Irish-Catholic family....
another fine book by Sebastian Barry August 23, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
ebastian Barry has done it again. I love his work and this one is no exception. I couldn't even talk after I finished this book (which is rare...I always have something to say, just ask my husband!), and I was a wee bit choked up. So...you may want to have a tissue at the ready. I read this in just about 3 hours and couldn't stop reading it except to fetch cookies I was baking out of the oven every 12 minutes. A beautiful book and one that really made me a bit angry when I think about it...the treatment of this young woman by a Catholic priest was just sad.
Basic plot: Roseanne Clear McNulty is probably a hundred years old, and lives in a mental institution which is about to be torn down. She is being assessed by the head of the place, a Dr. Grene, who has to decide if she's able to make it on her own on the outside. She in turn, has been writing a record of her life and keeps the thing hidden in her room under the floorboard. In this diary she tells of not only her life, but indirectly of the politics and troubles of Ireland. She loses her father at a young age, has a troubled mother, and has to take on life completely unprepared. Her life is ultimately ruined (I won't say how) by an Irish priest named Father Gaunt -- who obviously hates & mistrusts women and takes it upon himself to turn her life completely upside down at a time when she was happy. At that time, the priests of the church wielded a lot of power, so much so that they held the lives of people in their hands. But ... no matter how badly things were for Roseanne, and although her memory may fail her at times, she tries so hard above all else to be fair in her memories ...even to those who were less than kind to her. But Roseanne's story is one of two in this book -- Dr. Grene has his own demons with which he must grapple.
An amazing story; it's easy to see why Sebastian Barry's work keeps getting nominated for literary awards. He's an incredible writer, and his glimpses into Ireland's upheavals and the human costs of the troubled times are staples in his books. I can most highly recommend this book to anyone familiar with Barry's writing, or to anyone interested in Irish fiction, or to those who want to put a human face on Ireland's suffering, or to anyone interested in the (as the book cover blurb puts it) "stranglehold" of the Catholic Church on the Irish people. Although maybe a tad melodramatic toward the end (hence the hanky) I loved this book and I won't soon forget it.
 perhaps the best ive read this year July 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
the other reviews have covered it, except I would add that Barry's insights into the nature and functions of memory are profoundly interesting to me as a human being and as a historian. Read it.
The Perfect Summer Read July 26, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is the best book I've read since "The Kite Runner"! Written by an Irish author, it has the expected tragedy and angst, but it's the beauty of the storytelling that lifts this book above so many other "recommended" fiction books I've read this year. It was one of those rare books that kept me ignoring items on my "To Do" list so I could sneak in another chapter before bedtime. Regretfully, it was only 300 pages, which flew by much too quickly. I'm glad I have Barry's "The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty" on hand to turn to next. However, since "The Secret Scripture" included the character of Eneas in the plot, I wish I'd read that book first.
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