Books

Book review: Masterful Barry brings poetry to every page in Old God’s Time

One strand of Sebastian Barry’s novel deals with a cold case involving clerical child abuse, while the other, perhaps more impressive one, speaks to loneliness and grief

Sebastian Barry: his new book Old God’s Time is a harrowing yet deeply moving story. Picture: Getty

Sebastian Barry is a former Laureate for Irish Fiction and the only author to have secured the Costa Book of the Year Award twice, for The Sacred Scripture in 2008 and Days Without End in 2016 (a novel that managed to be both epic and intimate). If this prize were still being handed out, chances are he’d be jostling down the front again with Old God’s Time because it’s very good indeed.

Tom Kettle, a ...