Review
From the book jacket: One wintry evening in 1951, an itinerant storyteller -- a Seanchai
(pronounced shanachie), the very last practitioner of a fabled tradition
extending back hundreds of years, arrives unannounced at a house in the
Irish countryside. In exchange for a bed and a warm meal, he invites his
hosts and some of their neighbors to join him by the fireside, and begins
to tell stories of Ireland's history. One of his listeners, a
nine-year-old boy, Ronan, grows so entranced by the story-telling that,
when the old man leaves abruptly under mysterious circumstances, the boy
devotes himself to finding him again - a search that will take him the
next two decades and on a personal path that leads him deeper and deeper
into the history and mythology of Ireland itself, in all its drama,
intrigue, and...
Beyond the Book
Broadcaster and writer, Frank Delaney is the author
of at least sixteen books, both fiction (such as
The Sins of
the Mothers - 1992) and non-fiction (such as
James Joyce's
Odyssey and
The Legends of the Celts) - but this is his
first book to be published in the USA.
Interesting links:
- Delaney's full bibliography at the excellent FantasticFiction.
- The first story that the Seanchai tells is about the Megalithic tomb at Newgrange,
Ireland, which is even older than Stonehenge - it's worth
a...
