Araby

'On hearing of Kitty Keenan's admittance to hospital, her grown-up son Rory returns to Ireland to comfort his father and await the diagnosis . . . Rory's narrative, charting the steady decline of her health, is interspersed with a series of flashbacks . . . through which Kitty emerges larger than life. For Rory, these snapshots of the past are part of the process of unpicking the odd tangle of love and petty grievances that characterise familial relationships. Mulrooney's ability to make sense of the contradictions in clear, precise prose is the most remarkable achievement of the novel. A beautifully observed study of reconciliation, 'Araby' makes astute points about conflict and shifting values between generations. ' JAMES EVE, 'The Times'