A wonderful book. Roseanne McNulty, 100 years old, is a long-term patient of Roscommon Mental Hospital. She's Doctor Grene's patient. Secretly, she starts to record her memories, shifting, uncertain, lyrically expressed. Doctor Grene, whose own life is difficult, has access to a different version of her life story, and she does not confide her own to him. Hers was a life lived against a background of civil war and religious intolerance, of poverty, and the mental illness of her mother. Though many of her memories are bleak, Roseanne herself is warm, often funny, always sympathetic. Dr. Grene's losses and hurts are woven into the narrative, and at the end, his history, and that of Roseanne are interlinked in a most surprising way. This is a beautifully written and tragic novel about damaged but utterly sympathetic characters. ( )

This is a lovely book in many ways and I enjoyed it. The writing is striking and poetic in places, and the two main characters - an institutional psychiatrist and his 100-year-old resident patient - are complicated, sympathetic and believable. The story is engaging, and there is a mystery that propels you to the end. But the revelation of the mystery was a little incredible, and while very clever, it had a slightly saccharine fairytale quality to it that wasn't really needed and somewhat betrayed the more ambivalent and sometimes tragic weight of the rest of the book. ( )

A heartbreaking story told in 2 voices: Roseanne, nearing her 100th birthday having spent over half her life in an insane asylum, is secretly recording her shadowed past. Roseanne's psychiatrist Dr. Grene is trying to uncover her story to determine if she had been rightly committed. In alternating chapters, slowly two very different stories emerge as they circle the "truth". Beautifully written. ( )

While the story of the book wasn't all bad, from a historical perspective I kind of liked it, I really hated this book. I just could not get over the poetic ramblings by Barry. The fact that Sebastian Barry felt like he had to describe every little thing in his book as if it was a melancholic painting just made me angry. So it didn't matter what happened in the book, everytime when he so much as described a ray of sunlight my eyes involuntarily started to roll. I think this book had a nice premise with an average story which was thoroughly ruined by a writer trying to be dramatic. ( )

Told from two different angles, both of whom are unreliable narrators.[return][return]Roseanne, an elderly woman of not-quite-determined age has been living in an Irish mental hospital for at least 60 years. Dr Grene, nearing retirement, tries to assess Roseanne as the hospital is about to be relocated and he needs to assess where she should go. [return][return]In secret Roseanne starts to write her history, and running along side this you get to hear what Dr Grene finds out about her from various sources. It's a turbulent time in Ireland, the civil war is raging to be followed by WW2. Non Catholics are viewed by suspicion, the population are in thrall to the Catholic priests, who in turn believe their word is law and they are not to be ignored. Women who do not submit and conform (especially if they are pretty or sexually aware) are to be downtrodden, and if necessary committed to an asylum.[return][return]Roseanne tells her own version of her young life and what led to her committal to the asylum. Grene finds the alternate version, and in himself finds that he has put his own version of the truth, so recognises that noone's recollection is perfect. He also learns some shocking and surprising truths in the end.[return][return]Lovely, occasionally painful (it reminds me of my cultural heritage, and pushes a set of buttons in me that makes me very angry - primarily directed against the Catholic church and Irish priests in particular!), this has been catching my eye several times over the last few years and am now glad have read it ( )