The Wexford Trilogy

Download or read book The Wexford Trilogy written by Billy Roche and published by Dramatists Play Service Inc. This book was released on 2003 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE STORIES: A HANDFUL OF STARS. Set in a local dilapidated snooker hall, A HANDFUL OF STARS tells the story of Jimmy Brady, a young Wexford tearaway who refuses to abide by the rules and regulations that are applied in this so-called man's world,

Download or read book The Book of Evidence written by John Banville and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-03-07 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Banville’s stunning powers of mimicry are brilliantly on display in this engrossing novel, the darkly compelling confession of an improbable murderer. Freddie Montgomery is a highly cultured man, a husband and father living the life of a dissolute exile on a Mediterranean island. When a debt comes due and his wife and child are held as collateral, he returns to Ireland to secure funds. That pursuit leads to murder. And here is his attempt to present evidence, not of his innocence, but of his life, of the events that lead to the murder he committed because he could. Like a hero out of Nabokov or Camus, Montgomery is a chillingly articulate, self-aware, and amoral being, whose humanity is painfully on display.

Download or read book Troubles written by J.G. Farrell and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2002-10-31 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Lost Man Booker Prize, this darkly hilarious book about the Irish war for independence takes place in a crumbling hotel on Ireland's west coast, a place where madness and brutality have begun to reign. 1919: After surviving the Great War, Major Brendan Archer makes his way to Ireland, hoping to discover whether he is indeed betrothed to Angela Spencer, whose Anglo-Irish family owns the once-aptly-named Majestic Hotel in Kilnalough. But his fiancée is strangely altered and her family's fortunes have suffered a spectacular decline. The hotel's hundreds of rooms are disintegrating on a grand scale; its few remaining guests thrive on rumors and games of whist; herds of cats have taken over the Imperial Bar and the upper stories; bamboo shoots threaten the foundations; and piglets frolic in the squash court. Meanwhile, the Major is captivated by the beautiful and bitter Sarah Devlin. As housekeeping disasters force him from room to room, outside the order of the British Empire also totters: there is unrest in the East, and in Ireland itself the mounting violence of "the troubles." Troubles is a hilarious and heartbreaking work by a modern master of the historical novel.

Download or read book On Such as We written by Billy Roche and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A heart-warming new play from the author of The Wexford Trilogy and Cavalcaders.

Download or read book Doctor Copernicus written by John Banville and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-03-14 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea comes a novel set in sixteenth-century Europe about an obscure cleric who is preparing a theory that will shatter the medieval view of the universe—while being haunted by his malevolent brother and threatened by the conspiracies raging around him and his ideas. Sixteenth-century Europe is teeming with change and controversy: wars are being waged by princes and bishops and the repercussions of Luther are being felt through a convulsing Germany. In a remote corner of Poland a modest canon is practicing medicine and studying the heavens, preparing a theory that will shatter the medieval view of the universe. In this astonishing work of historical imagination, John Banville offers a vivid portrait of a man of painful reticence. For, in a world that is equal parts splendor and barbarism, an obscure cleric who seeks “the secret music of the universe” poses a most devastating threat.

Download or read book A Handful of Stars written by Billy Roche and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Billy Roche's classic Irish drama, recently revived 25 years after its world premiere.

Download or read book Lay Me Down Softly written by Billy Roche and published by Dramatists Play Service Inc. This book was released on 2014-08-25 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in rural Ireland in 1962, LAY ME DOWN SOFTLY takes us into the burlesque world of the boxing booth of Delaney's Travelling Roadshow, affectionately known as "The Academy". We dip down the shadowy, ropey avenues to the sound of the churning calliope, where we encounter the play's cast of dangerous characters: Theo, the charismatic, jealous, and violent ringmaster; his Carmen-esque lover, Lily; Peadas, Theo’s old, tired and not-so-trusted sidekick; the vain and boastful prize-fighter Dean; and the limping, Adonis-like Junior. Into this world comes Emer, a wounded waif of a girl who has come in search of her long-lost father. Her presence and the arrival of a professional boxer threaten to upset the already shaky equilibrium.