'Billie Gray was my best friend and I fell in love with is mother' In a small town in 1950s Ireland a fifteen-year-old boy has illicit meetings with a thirty-five-year-old woman - in the back of her car on sunny mornings, and in a rundown cottage in the country on rain-soaked afternoons. Unsure why she has chosen him, he becomes obsessed and tormented by this first love. Half a century later, actor Alexander Cleave - grieving for the recent loss of his daughter - recalls these trysts, trying to make sense of the boy he was and of the needs and frailties of the human heart. 'Dazzling . . . captures a long-lost adolescent world of passion and desire.' Independent 'Illuminating, funny, devastating. A meditation of breathtaking beauty and profundity on love and loss and death.' Financial Times 'As gorgeous and precise as in his 2005 Man Booker winner The Sea . . . evokes scenes so that they burn in the reader's mind.' Sunday Express 'Brilliant. Banville excels in his brightly lit descrptions of self-absorbed teenage lust.' Guardian
John Banville
John Banville is an Irish writer known for his precise prose, introspective narratives, and exploration of themes such as memory, identity, and loss. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Man Booker Prize for his novel "The Sea" in 2005. Banville often blurs the lines between reality and fiction, creating intricate and complex characters that grapple with the complexities of human experience. His writing is marked by its lyrical beauty and intellectual depth, making him a prominent figure in contemporary literature.
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