This Is The Way
WINNER OF THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2013
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ENCORE PRIZE 2013
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BORD GAIS IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2013
With the voice of Anthony Sonaghan – a modern-day Traveller born to a powerful, mythic inheritance – Gavin Corbett summons a world we thought we knew as we have not seen or heard it before:
‘There I was now. In a room, a tidy room, tidier than any room I been in before. The bed was hard. The walls they gave no sound. A heavy window thumped itself shut. Good I says. Peace I says.’
Anthony, the son of a Sonaghan father and a Gillaroo mother, is descended from two families whose enmity is a matter of legend. Though he belongs to a storytelling tradition, Anthony has grown up away from his people, and is only dimly aware of their disputes. That is until the blood feud touches him, and he comes to Dublin to lie low. His time in the city is a reckoning. Only there does he appreciate the strength of his heritage but also its otherness.
In an unforgettable feat of imposture, Gavin Corbett has found a startling idiom – vivid and innocent – with which to speak for Anthony and that other, Travelling world.
”'A curious and delightful confection … A sly and lovely humour dominates … Anthony Sonaghan and Uncle Arthur will linger a long while with readers … A memorable work from a gifted writer whose next moves we should await with very keen interest” - Kevin Barry, Guardian
”'This fresh and funny novel is a devastating love story - one that comes upon you by stealth and stays with you long after you’ve finished reading” - Claire Lowdon, New Statesman
”'Within a couple of pages, I had fallen into the rhythm of a unique and extraordinary voice.” - Kate Saunders, Daily Mail
”'Corbett creates a memorable voice to explore the power that heritage wields over an outsider struggling to find his place in the world” - Sunday Times
”'It’s a bloody good story” - Spectator
”'The triumph is in the telling. Anthony’s voice, once heard, is hard to forget; its rhythms, its repetitions, its sly humour - all strike the reader as genuinely original. It’s a timely reminder that while fiction may not change things in the real world, it does offer us new ways to dream” - Irish Times
'A troubling, mysterious, demanding and beautiful book, narrated in a voice unlike any I have encountered in fiction. Corbett knows what he's doing: every sentence throbs with power.' Emma Donoghue, author of ‘Room’ -
”'A writer with the rigorous introspection of James Kelman, mediated by the compassion of Raymond Carver and the visceral imagination of Alan Warner. Yes, and a hearty measure of Flann O'Brien besides. But the hell with the antecedents: the man is an original, with a bridge to the world of first things he's fashioned for himself.” - James Meek, author of 'The People's Act of Love’
”'A wonderful new voice.” - Joseph O’Neill, author of 'Netherland’
‘The voice is brilliant. It is tender and true, arcane and elevated. It holds the past and present in a single visionary gaze. This is not only a wonderful book, it is a book about wonders.’ Eoin McNamee, author of ‘Resurrection Man’ and ‘The Blue Tango’ -
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