The Blackwater Lightship -- Colm Toibin, Paperback

From the author of The Master and Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín weaves together the lives of three generations of estranged women as they reunite to witness and mourn the death of a brother, a son, and a grandson.

It is Ireland in the early 1990s. Helen, her mother, Lily, and her grandmother, Dora, have come together to tend to Helen's brother, Declan, who is dying of AIDS. With Declan's two friends, the six of them are forced to plumb the shoals of their own histories and to come to terms with each other.​

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, The Blackwater Lightship is a deeply resonant story about three generations of an estranged family reuniting to mourn an untimely death. In spare, luminous prose, Colm Tóibín explores the nature of love and the complex emotions inside a family at war with itself. Hailed as a genuine work of art (Chicago Tribune), this is a novel about the capacity of stories to heal the deepest wounds.

Author: Colm Toibin
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Published: 06/05/2001
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.54lbs
Size: 8.02h x 5.30w x 0.64d
ISBN: 9780743203319

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 06/24/2001 pg. 28
New York Times 12/02/2001 pg. 88

About the Author
Colm Tóibín is the author of ten novels, including The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster, as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University. Three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Tóibín lives in Dublin and New York.