The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Berry

I know that this book was already reviewed on this blog, but I wanted to add my ringing endorsement of it. It's the language and the mood that are lingering with me still. The two narrative voices alternate with each other throughout the book: one is "Roseanne's Testimony of Herself" (Patient, Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital, 1957-) and the other is "Dr. Grene's Commonplace Book" (Senior Psychiatrist, Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital). These two central characters square off in the book as Dr. Grene sets out to discover why 100-year old Roseanne Clear was committed to the hospital to begin with, so he can decide whether to move or release her now that the facility is about to be demolished. He takes meticulous notes on his interviews with Roseanne and his research into her past, as well as his own experiences of love, loss and guilt. Roseanne's mission is to deflect Dr. Grene's questions until she can complete the secret writing of her life's story, which she keeps hidden under the floorboards. The two have an affectionate, respectful relationship and each seems to enjoy the other's company even while dancing around the truth of what happened in Roseanne's past. The two voices are so different from one another, yet both are so poetic and expressive of the English language as it is uniquely spoken by the Irish. Their writing reads like speech:

Roseanne: Sligo made me and Sligo undid me, but then I should have given up much sooner than I did being made or undone by human towns, and looked to myself alone. The terror and hurt in my story happened because when I was young I thought others were the authors of my fortune or misfortune; I did not know that a person could hold up a wall made of imaginary bricks and mortar against the horrors and cruel, dark tricks of time that assail us, and be the author therefore of themselves.

Dr. Grene: Second-hand cloth used to be called 'beyond redemption' or not. In the old days all the suits for males and the gowns for the dames in a place like this would be stitched from charity cloth, the first by a tailor, the second by a seamstress. I am sure even that technically 'beyond redemption' was thought good enough for the poor hearts residing here. But as time goes on, as I am slowly like everyone else worn out, finding a tatter here and a tear there in the cloth of myself, I need this place more and more. Maybe I should be more frustrated by the obvious cul-de-sac nature of psychiatry, the horrible depreciation in the states of those that linger here, the impossibility of it all. But God help me, I am not. In a few years I will reach retirement age, and what then? I will be like a sparrow without a garden.

The writing is just beautiful, and the story, as it unfolds, is full of tragedy and flawed characters and irredeemable choices made at the forks in the road of life. At times, the plot advanced very slowly, and if I let too much time lapse between reading sessions, I had to go back a chapter and reground myself in the narrative. The last third of the book was a page-turner, though, as Roseanne's life story is gradually revealed. This book is the opposite of a Dan Brown thriller, in that it's the voices of the storytellers that capture your imagination and there are no explicit history lessons given. There are references to politics and civil war, and characterizations of ruthless priests and the rigid catholic church, and commentary on Irish society in a particular time and place, but that all serves as rich background to the story and its two main characters. In fact, I found myself curious to know a bit more about the history of Ireland. But that was not the purpose of this book. It was a slice of life, or a remembered life, and I really enjoyed it.