New frontiers for Sebastian Barry with latest novel

FICTION: Days Without End, By Sebastian Barry, Faber, €19

Sebastian Barry has forged a writing life from his family history. In A Long Long Way (2005), his great grandfather’s career in the Dublin Metropolitan Police during the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence, allowed him to open up the national narrative to alternative ideas of patriotism.

In The Secret Scripture (2007), the story of his great-aunt’s incarceration in an asylum reflected the ...