Jennifer Johnston

'With masterful control, Johnston excavates a well of memory and hurt, quietly demonstrating the damage that can be done by families' The TimesA beautifully crafted Irish novel of loss and yearning...Johnny, an outstanding young swimmer, went missing nearly thirty years ago: drowned, or so everyone except his sister Imogen believes. How could this have happened? Encouraged and pushed as a child by his father, Johnny could have made the Olympic team, couldn't he? As Imogen gradually pieces together bits of her family history, we hear the tragic echoes that connect her with the Great War and Ireland in the nineteen-twenties.'Subtle, moving and beautifully constructed' The Sunday TimesWhat readers say about THIS IS NOT A NOVEL:'A beautiful novel' ? ? ? ? ?'This is a story told in layers. Like so many other Irish writers the distinctiveness of the place of their birth is never far from the surface' ? ? ? ?

An exquisite, poignant story of an Irish boyhood in the 1970sDerry in the 1970s: teenager Joe Logan is growing up in the teeth of the Troubles, having to cope with embittered parents, a brother who's been away and come back with money and a gun in his pocket, and the constant presence of the British Army in the background. But when Joe develops a friendship with a young school teacher, a fresh perspective is brought to his familiar world.Shadows on our Skin was shortlisted for the 1977 Booker Prize for Fiction

'It is difficult to convey the marvellous quality of this book' Daily TelegraphConstance Keating has lived a life of internal exile, alienated from her family and from Ireland.Now she has returned to her family home to die. While that painful, messy process takes place she replays, like a home movie, the fragments of her past. And, as the festooned Christmas tree awaits its day, so Constance also waits, hoping her child's father will come and that the final outcome will be on her terms.What readers say about THE CHRISTMAS TREE:'A book that touched my heart. No sentimentality, or tear jerking, simply a beautiful, tender, yet sad, story'? ? ? ? ?'Read it. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll be a wiser person by the time you finish the last page'? ? ? ? ?

'Jennifer Johnston is masterly at creating atmosphere and evoking period and place' Daily ExpressIt starts with a funeral. The great and the good have assembled: the President has sent a representative, and dignitaries are there in force. And Laura remembers those two terrible events. But was the tragedy out at sea an accident? Was the experience in the summerhouse cause rather than effect?With wonderful delicacy and economy, Jennifer Johnston has stripped bare the lives of a family overwhelmed by more than one of the deadly sins.