by Banville, John
A story of obsessive young love and the power of grief, Ancient Light is the best novel yet from the Booker Prize winner of The Sea'Billy Gray was my best friend and I fell in love with his mother.'Alexander Cleave, an actor who thinks his best days are behind him, remembers his first unlikely affair as a teenage boy in a small town in 1950s Ireland: the illicit meetings in a rundown cottage outside town; assignations in the back of his lover's car on sunny mornings and rain-soaked afternoons. And with these early memories comes something sharper and much darker - the more recent recollection of the actor's own daughter's suicide ten years before. 'I should like to be in love again, I should like to fall in love again, just once more.'Ancient Light is the story of a life rendered brilliantly vivid: the obsession and selfishness of young love and the terrifying shock of grief. It is a dazzling novel, funny, utterly pleasurable and devastatingly moving in the same moment.'He is a master, and his prose gives continuous, sensual delight' Martin Amis on John BanvilleJohn Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of fourteen previous novels including The Sea, which won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. He was recently awarded the Franz Kafka Prize.
Ancient light / Feature / Daily Mail / Saturday / 13 Apr 2013
Feature: Baking bread? It's the next best thing to sex!
Star Rating: 4 Stars
Ancient Light / Feature / Daily Mail / Saturday / 05 Jan 2013
Feature: My parents were born old. So why, at 67, do I still not feel grown-up
Star Rating: 4 Stars
Ancient Light / Feature / "Sunday Business Post, Ireland" / Sunday / 23 Dec 2012
Feature: Sunday Business Post, Ireland Books of the Year 2012
Star Rating: 4 Stars
One to One / Arts / BBC Radio 4 / Tuesday / 11 Dec 2012 / 09:30
With Booker prize-winner John Banville
Ancient Light / Feature / Irish Times / Saturday / 08 Dec 2012
Feature: Irish Times Books of the Year 2012
Star Rating: 4 Stars
One to One / Arts / BBC Radio 4 / Tuesday / 04 Dec 2012 / 09:30
With Booker prize-winner John Banville
One to One / Arts / BBC Radio 4 / Tuesday / 04 Dec 2012 / 09:30
With Booker prize-winner John Banville
Ancient light / Feature / Guardian / Saturday / 24 Nov 2012
Feature: Guardian 2012 Books of the Year
Star Rating: 4 Stars
Ancient light / Feature / Guardian / Saturday / 24 Nov 2012
Feature: Guardian 2012 Books of the Year
Star Rating: 4 Stars
Ancient light / Review / New Statesman / Monday / 13 Aug 2012
Feature: New Statesman Critics - Summer Fiction Special
Star Rating: 1 Stars
Ancient light / Review / Mail on Sunday / Sunday / 12 Aug 2012
Star Rating: 5 Stars
Ancient light / Review / Daily Express / Friday / 03 Aug 2012
With economy of expression just as he did in his Man Booker prize-winning novel The Sea, Banville artfully explores the question the law tends to ignore: when it’s an older bloke with an underage girl it’s obvious who is taking advantage but when it’s an older woman and a teenage boy it’s not so clear where the harm lies. Never moralising, he is wise and sometimes very funny. Mercifully he also swerves away from the coincidence he teases us with and instead ends with an elegant but convincing surprise that perfectly captures the gap between the stories we remember about ourselves and what really happened. › Read full review
Star Rating: 4 Stars
Book at Bedtime / Drama / BBC Radio 4 / Friday / 27 Jul 2012 / 22:45
Ancient Light: John Banvilles acclaimed new novel
Book at Bedtime / Drama / BBC Radio 4 / Thursday / 26 Jul 2012 / 22:45
Ancient Light: John Banvilles acclaimed new novel
Book at Bedtime / Drama / BBC Radio 4 / Wednesday / 25 Jul 2012 / 22:45
Ancient Light: John Banvilles acclaimed new novel