Reading In the Dark: Book Reviews

"I think sometimes you're possessed," says the narrator's mother when he probes her about family history. "Can't you just let the past be past?" Like everyone else in this family from Derry, Northern Ireland, the narrator in Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark is haunted by the past. Unlike his parents, who harbor secrets they cannot tell each other, the narrator is determined to unearth the story behind his family's unspoken anguish. These family secrets …

…his mother against him and ultimately drives him away from home, despite his painful love for his parents. This is the story of a family laboring under a crushing past, suffering from its own guilty secrets--and of a boy who refuses to adhere to the family's unspoken pact of silence. Told in a poetic language that is dense with the felt immediacy of daily life, it is a coming-of-age story that is searing and unforgettable.