Publisher: Hodder and Hodder (2009)
ISBN: 978-0571215294
I loved this story. It wasn’t fast paced, nor full of steamy activities, nor murder or mayhem. It was intriguing. It did capture my imagination. It made me shed a tear. The Secret Scripture is a story of love, loss and ignorance. But it is also a story of power, misplaced power at that, power held by people who thought they were right. But their actions influenced not one but many lives for decades.
Roseanne is at the beginning of the story, an old woman of around 100 years old. She has spent most of her life incarcerated in a mental health hospital, but it appears no one knows why. The story centres around her doctor unravelling the mystery. Her medical records are lost or incomplete and the hospital is closing down. Decisions need to be made about her relocation.
Dr Grene is the psychiatrist in charge of her care and has never really paid much attention to his eldest patient until now. But finding out what lies behind her incarceration becomes almost his obsession. He is an Irishman, brought up by adoptive parents in England and lives a sterile, loveless life with his wife.
The story is told through flashbacks to Roseanne’s life and the observations of Dr Grene as both characters record their memories and thoughts in independent journals – the secret scriptures.
The Secret Scriptures is set in rural Sligo, Ireland with flashbacks between the present day and Roseanne’s childhood and her incarceration as a young woman in the 1930’s.
The use of the present tense for both main characters allows you to enter their minds and see things as they see them – an intimate experience – you hear, feel and see their pain and their struggles and their desires. Barry has a certain poetic feel to his description and he cleverly weaves together the old woman’s memories with the facts of the day. Roseanne’s recall of events is understandably shrouded in a mist, she herself is no longer certain if what she remembers is the truth.
Dr Grene is thorough with his research around the circumstances leading to Roseanne’s arriving at the institution; even the death of his wife does not deter him. He is determined to make the right decisions for her future, no matter how short that may be.
Eventually the missing pieces are put together, with an ending, which was beginning to take shape but not clear until the end.
The Secret Scripture is beautifully narrated and I almost could reach out and touch Roseanne, so real did she seem. Through the bland although rather endearing character of Dr Grene, we learn that bad things happen, that there is little that can be done about them now, but we hope that they never happen again. A truly delightful but serious tale.
About the Author
Sebastian Barry is an Irish playwright, novelist and poet. He has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction twice and won the Costa Book of the Year Award in 2008.
Readability Rating: 10 (A Serious Good Read)
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