The Sunken Road
  • Published: 18 February 2021
  • ISBN: 9781473573383
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 272
Categories:

The Sunken Road

Formats & editions
Paperback
15 Jun 2022
EBook
18 Feb 2021
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A powerful and gripping novel about love, loyalty and obsession set during WWI and the Irish War of Independence.

'Ciarán McMenamin confirms his exceptional talent with this admirably powerful and authentic novel about the First World War and the struggle for Irish independence. Tremendous' William Boyd
Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
Annie, Francie and Archie were inseparable growing up, but in 1914 the boys are seduced by the drama of the Great War. Before leaving their small Irish village for the trenches, Francie promises his true love Annie that he will bring her little brother home safe.

Six years later Francie is on the run, a wanted man in the Irish war of Independence. He needs Annie's help to escape safely across the border, but that means confronting the truth about why Archie never came back....

For readers of Sebastian Faulks, Ian McEwan and Sebastian Barry
  • Published: 18 February 2021
  • ISBN: 9781473573383
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 272
Categories:

About the author

Ciaran McMenamin

Ciaran McMenamin was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, in 1975. A graduate of the RSAMD, he has worked extensively for the past twenty years as an actor in film, television and theatre. His acclaimed first novel, Skintown, was a WHSmith Fresh Talent pick.

portrait photo of Ciaran McMenamin

Also by Ciaran McMenamin

Skintown
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Praise for The Sunken Road

McMenamin writes with verve and honesty

Irish Times

Ciarán McMenamin confirms his exceptional talent with this admirably powerful and authentic novel about the First World War and the struggle for Irish independence. Tremendous.

William Boyd

It's gorgeously written, it's cracking, it runs along with great vivid passages.'

Rick O'Shea, Top Picks for 2021

A masterful depiction of the human cost of war...reveals how even in the worst of horrors, and against all the odds, love can survive. McMenamin writes with a passionate intensity.

David Park

[A] violent and tender story where memorable characters battle love, loyalty and the terrible truths of war

Eithne Farry, Daily Mail

Ambitious and powerful...superbly drawn...a stirring novel broad in location and historical sweep...within a tradition that includes O'Connor, Liam O'Flaherty, Sebastian Barry and Frank McGuinness... Paramount in this tradition is the need to expose the big lies, to help us to see the conflict with fresh eyes - and on all of these counts, McMenamin's ambitious novel scores big

Sunday Times

This gripping novel shifts between [the] race to the south and a slow reveal of what happened between the three men on the Western Front...McMenamin never puts a foot wrong, expertly interweaving the historical and the imagined, right up to his masterly denouement

Hot Press

Ambitious and powerful...superbly drawn...McMenamin's ambitious novel scores big

Sunday Times

There is a smooth grace to his prose...The tension between the compulsions of history and circumstance, and personal moral choice, are played out compellingly

Irish Independent

Set during WW1 and the Irish Civil War, turning on two pivotal stories in Ireland's history -- the foundation of the State, and the Protestant memory of WW1 - the novel follows the story of a brutal IRA man, who now needs the help of his childhood sweetheart, and sister of his dead friend, to cross the border to safety.

Irish Times

A powerful reflection on complex Irish loyalties, divisions and identities, a romantic drama, and a page-turning thriller.

Irish Times