Book cover for Eclipse

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The first of John Banville's novels concerning father and daughter Alexander and Cass Cleave, Eclipse is a lyrical exploration of memory, family and identity.

Alexander Cleave, actor, has left his career and his family behind and banished himself to his childhood home. He wants to retire from life, but finds this impossible in a house brimming with presences, some ghostly, some undeniably human. Memories, anxiety for the future and more particularly for his beloved but troubled daughter, conspire to distract him from his dreaming retirement.

This humane and beautifully written story tells the tragic tale of a man, intelligent, preposterous and vulnerable, who in attempting to bring the performance to a close finds himself travelling inevitably towards a devastating denouement.

  • ISBN10 033048222X
  • ISBN13 9780330482226
  • Publish Date 5 March 2010 (first published 22 September 2000)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Pan Macmillan
  • Imprint Picador
  • Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
  • Pages 224
  • Language English