Days Without End

An unlikely love story between Irish immigrant Thomas McNulty and his younger friend John Cole, this new work is set on the American frontier in the mid 1800s, and its depth and beauty bring to mind the great prairie novels of Willa Cather. Thomas and John meet when they join the army together in 1851, and they soon are sent to fight Native Americans in Missouri. During the course of the novel, they witness massacres, participate in grisly Civil War battles, and end up adopting an orphaned Native girl as their daughter. Thomas is the narrator, and his voice sings from the page in an appealing blend of gritty vernacular, unschooled syntax, and rough-hewn poetry as he bears witness to the awesome beauty of the American landscape and the savagery in the hearts of men. Barry, twice short-listed for the Man Booker Prize (A Long Long Way; The Secret Scripture), offers a meditation on the nature of what it means to be an American, and his conclusions are both complex and fearless.