"A beautiful, savage, tender, searing work of art. Sentence after perfect sentence it grips and does not let go." (Donal Ryan). "A violent, superbly lyrical western offering a sweeping vision of America in the making [and] the most fascinating line-by-line first person narration I've come across in years." (Kazuo Ishiguro). "I am thinking of the days without end of my life..." After signing up for the US army in the 1850s, aged barely seventeen, Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, go on to fight in the Indian wars and, ultimately, the Civil War. Having fled terrible hardships they find these days to be vivid and filled with wonder, despite the horrors they both see and are complicit in. Their lives are further enriched and imperilled when a young Indian girl crosses their path, and the possibility of lasting happiness emerges, if only they can survive. Moving from the plains of the West to Tennessee, Sebastian Barry's latest work is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language. Both an intensely poignant story of two men and the lives they are dealt, and a fresh look at some of the most fateful years in America's past, Days Without End is a novel never to be forgotten.
Finally finished this vividly imagined, intoxicating tale on querness, violence and atrocious American history. I'm drained, elated, enraptured and sickened to be on the roller coater ride with dancing boys dressed as women to the same boys joining army and brutally killing Indians.
The language is a hearty made-up vernacular worthy of Mark Twain. Stick with it, you'll be glad you did.
And to you Mr. Barry, I beg you to please let me sit and stare at you when you write. Iet me be your slave.
