Birchwood

An early classic from the Man Booker-prize winning author ofThe Sea. I am therefore I think. So starts John Banville's 1973 novelBirchwood, a novel that centers around Gabriel Godkin and his return to his dilapidated family estate. After years away, Gabriel returns to a house filled with memories and despair. Delving deep into family secretsa cold father, a tortured mother, an insane grandmotherGabriel also recalls his first encounters with love and loss. At once a novel of a family, of isolation, and of a blighted Ireland,Birchwoodis a remarkable and complex story about the end of innocence for one boy and his country, told in the brilliantly styled prose of one of our most essential writers.

John Banville is the author of ten novels, including the Man Booker-prize winning novel The Sea. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.