Say Nothing: A True Story Of Murder And Memory In Northern Ireland

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Review:

TIME's #1 Best Nonfiction Book of 2019

'Say Nothing rightly won this year's Orwell prize for political writing. It is a superb piece of reportage and writing ... It is a book that could become worryingly relevant again.' Times, the best current affairs and politics books of 2019

'In this meticulously reported book - as finely paced as a novel - Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland ... A searing, utterly gripping saga.' New York Times, best books of 2019

'Breathtaking in its scope and ambition... Keefe has produced a searing examination of the nature of truth in war and the toll taken by violence and deceit... Will take its place alongside the best of the books about the Troubles' Sunday Times

'A horrible, chilling tale and I'm glad someone has at last had the guts to tell it. There have been, thus far, only two good books to emerge from the Troubles. This is the third.' Jeremy Paxman

'A gripping and profoundly human explanation for a past that still denies and defines the future... Only an outsider could have written a book this good ... If conclusions are possible, Radden Keefe's is that everyone became complicit in the terror... I can't praise this book enough: it's erudite, accessible, compelling, enlightening. I thought I was bored by Northern Ireland's past until I read it.' Melanie Reid, The Times

'An exceptional new book, Say Nothing explores this brittle landscape to devastating effect.' Wall Street Journal

'Keefe's narrative is an architectural feat, expertly constructed out of complex and contentious material, arranged and balanced just so... This sensitive and judicious book raises some troubling, and perhaps unanswerable, questions.' New York Times

'Vivid and rightly shocking... Say Nothing is an excellent account of the Troubles; it might also be a warning.' Roddy Doyle

 

 

 

Author Biography: Patrick Radden Keefe is a staff writer at The New Yorker, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, and the author of 'The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld' and the 'American Dream and Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping'. He writes about legal issues, crime, national security, and foreign policy. (And pop culture occasionally, too.) In 2014, Patrick received the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, for his story "A Loaded Gun." The recipient of a Marshall Scholarship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and fellowships at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Patrick has been a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Prize and the Overseas Press Club's Cornelius Ryan Award for Best Book on International Affairs. Patrick grew up in Dorchester, Massachusetts and went to college at Columbia. He received Masters degrees from Cambridge University and the London School of Economics, and a JD from Yale Law School.

Description

From award-winning New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe, a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions. In December 1972, Jean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.   Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerising book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past -- Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.

Awards

Winner 2019 Orwell Prize for Non-Fiction writing

Reviews

 "A riveting, thoughtful and deeply moving book which thoroughly investigates terrorism and politics in Northern Ireland, the wickedness of all sides, and the human tragedy for one family in particular after the abduction and murder by the IRA of a struggling widowed mother. Winner of the 2019 Orwell Prize for Non- Fiction writing." - Hedley Thomas, investigative journalist, creator of the podcast 'Teacher's Pet'

"Meticulously reported, exquisitely written, and grippingly told, Say Nothing is a work of revelation."- David Grann, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon

"This] gripping account of the Troubles is equal parts true-crime, history, and tragedy . . . A must read." - Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl