Swallowing the Sun

Description

In the museum Martin stands watch over the past. He has travelled a long way from his brutal childhood in the Loyalist heartlands of Belfast and built a life he never imagined he would have - a devoted wife, Alison, two children, Rachel and Tom, a respectable job. But the happiness he has found feels brittle. Rachel's academic success is launching her out of her proud father's orbit. Tom, eclipsed by his sister, has withdrawn into a fantasy world. Martin's gratitude to Alison is a gulf between them. He feels unworthy of his wife, his life, his luck. Returning home one night to find police cars waiting, Martin feels his sins must have finally caught up with him. But their news is wholly unexpected, a senseless tragedy. And in the face of this devastating trauma, which tears his fragile family apart, Martin finds the violence of the past is not gone but merely dormant; its call must be answered at last.

David Park has written five books, most recently the hugely acclaimed The Big Snow. He was the winner of the Authors' Club First Novel Award, the Bass Ireland Arts Award for Literature and two-time winner of the University of Ulster's McCrea Literary Award. He lives in County Down, Northern Ireland with his wife and two children.

'The real distinction of Swallowing The Sun lies in the brooding gaze turned on the Warings in their hour of crisis ... perfectly judged and horribly convincing' Independent on Sunday 'Park is an excellent writer: psychologically astute, lyrically unflinching. His characters' smothering guilts or tiny physical sensations are beautifully conveyed' Daily Telegraph 'There is a Coetzeean accuracy to the writing. Some of the family sequences are wrenchingly affecting ... Flawed, brilliant, knotty, uncompromising, this is not an easy novel, but it is an important and beautiful one' Joseph O'Connor, Guardian 'This novel is constructed with great intensity and delicacy ... Within its stringent compass, Swallowing the Sun is a powerful, economical account of an unbearable turn of events' Patricia Craig, Independent