Summary of A Long Long Way
This First World War novel describes the experiences of young Irishman Willie Dunne, who joins the British army to fight in the fields of Flanders around Ypres, and witnesses death and destruction all around him. During a leave in Dublin, he is ordered to help suppress the Easter Rising, the 1916 Irish nationalist rebellion against British rule, which leaves him questioning his own loyalties. Ultimately, he finds himself rejected by both sides – by those loyal to the British, including his own father, for his sympathy with the rebels, and by the Irish nationalists for serving in the British army.
Reasons to read A Long Long Way
“A Long Long Way” describes the brutal realities of trench warfare on the Western Front, including the tensions between Irish and English soldiers in the British army, intensified by the Easter Rising. “A Long Long Way” is one of the few World War I novels that tells the story of the trenches from the perspective of an Irish soldier. Sebastian Barry is a renowned Irish writer, who twice won the Costa Book of the Year award, with “The Secret Scripture” in 2008 and with “Days Without End” in 2017. His novels “A Long Long Way” and “The Secret Scripture” were both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, in 2005 and 2008 respectively.
Setting: Ypres (Belgium) & Dublin (Ireland)
Original title: A Long Long Way
Year of publication: 2005
Nr of pages: 292
