Slimming for the Beach

Many con­grat­u­la­tions to Sebas­t­ian Barry, whose novel A Long Long Way has won Kerry Group Irish Fic­tion Award at the open­ing of Lis­towel Writ­ers’ Week.

The novel is about a sol­dier in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers dur­ing the first World War. The same sol­dier is a ghostly pres­ence in Barry’s drama mas­ter­piece, The Stew­ard of Christendom.

The oth­ers on the short­list were Der­mot Bolger’s The Fam­ily on Par­adise Pier, John Banville’s The Sea, Jen­nifer Johnston’s Grace and Truth, and Nick Laird’s Utterly Monkey.

A Long, Long Way was short­listed for the 2005 Man Booker, which of course was won by John Banville’s The Sea.

Let me say once again that they are friends of mine, but hear­ing Barry and Bol­ger read from their mag­nif­i­cent nov­els was for me the high­light of last year’s Dublin Writ­ers’ Fes­ti­val, and it is won­der­ful to see two such gifted and ver­sa­tile writ­ers at the height of their nov­el­is­tic powers.

Look­ing down the list, the judges of the Irish Fic­tion Award, Carlo Gébler and Glenn Pat­ter­son, must have had a hell­ish time decid­ing on the win­ner. Rather them than me.

The Kerry Group Irish Fic­tion Award 2006