Midwinter Break

Bernard MacLaverty Jonathan Cape €16.95 Sixteen years on from his last novel, Bernard MacLaverty reminds us why he is one of the greatest living Irish writers. A marriage of more than 40 years strains under the burden of drinking and a pledge made decades earlier in this sympathetic, frequently witty portrait of ageing love. The drinker is Gerry, a retired architect whose tippling has made him sly. His wife is Stella, a crossword fan whose mission to repay a spiritual debt has to do with a mysterious scar on her back and Belfast during the Troubles. Unbeknown to Gerry, it is also what’s brought them to Amsterdam in January for a long weekend – a trip that reveals the chasms in their seemingly solid relationship. You won’t find a sharper, more intimate delineation of what marriage really adds up to.