Eclipse by John Banville (
Wikipedia entry) is the 1st in the multiple award-winning Nobel Prize-contending Irish playwright & novelist's introspective literary fiction Alexander and Cass Cleave trilogy about the relationship between an actor, his estranged daughter, and what look like a whole bunch of quasi-supernatural elements, at least in this installment, which happens to have its
very own Wikipedia entry, free courtesy of publisher Macmillan's Picador imprint.
The 3rd novel in this trilogy did indeed win the Irish Book Award, just so you know.
Currently free @
Amazon (only available to Canadians, probably because it's likely a glitch they haven't caught yet, like the other few I've found and will be posting eventually, if they last long enough).
And this has been the selected 3rd free book thread of the day. Enjoy!
Description
Alexander Cleave, actor, has left his career and his family behind and banished himself to his childhood home.
He wants to retire from life, but finds this impossible in a house brimming with presences, some ghostly, some undeniably human. Memories, anxiety for the future and more particularly for his beloved but troubled daughter, conspire to distract him from his dreaming retirement.
This humane and beautifully written story tells the tragic tale of a man, intelligent, preposterous and vulnerable, who in attempting to bring the performance to a close finds himself travelling inevitably towards a devastating denouement.