The Past (1980)
On June 1st, 1914, Una O’Shaughnessy sends a postcard home from a Cornish seaside town. Back in two weeks, she promises. But seven months later, she still has not returned to Ireland, and she sends another postcard, this one signed Una, Michael, Rene (!).
The Past is the story of Rene, this unexpected child, as told by her own child as he searches for the truth about his parents’ mysterious and romantic history. Through the reminiscences of his mother’s friend, the pieces of the past begin to fit together into a delicate mosaic of the truth. What really happened in that seaside town? Why does the past seem to hold so many secrets?
Set over twenty-five years, travelling from Cornwall to Dublin and the Irish Provinces, The Past is a beautiful novel of love and longing, created by one of the preeminent artists of our time.
Product details
Publisher John Murray Press, 2012
ISBN 1848548206, 9781848548206
Length 320 pages
Praise for The Past:
"Jordan's first novel…remains the most under-rated Irish novel ever written, while its virtuoso successor The Dream of the Beast(1983) is also shamefully ignored. Jordan the writer, in tune with Irish and European myth and legend, has always been gifted."-Irish Times
"The Past…gives readers the chance to find the seeds of the major themes in Jordan’s work—memory, identity and the growing pains of Ireland as it moves toward independence."
-Paste Magazine
"…an elegiac remembrance of two larger-than-life Irish women set in the early decades of the last century." -Publishers Weekly