Recently retired policeman Tom Kettle is settling into the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a Victorian castle overlooking the Irish Sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, catching only glimpses of his eccentric landlord and a nervous young mother who has moved in next door. Occasionally, fond memories return, of his family, his beloved wife June and their two children, Winnie and Joe.

But when two former colleagues turn up at his door with questions about a decades-old case, one which Tom never quite came to terms with, he finds himself pulled into the darkest currents of his past.

A beautiful, haunting novel, in which nothing is quite as it seems, Old God's Time is about what we live through, what we live with, and what may survive of us.

Praise for Sebastian Barry and Old God's Time

"Few can write like Sebastian Barry, there is a real thrill as each sentence unfolds.Old God's Timeis a portrait of a good man facing the failings of his past. It is wonderfully alive because Barry is so attuned to the human condition, to the poetry in ordinary lives. Full of love and grief and heartache, this is an unforgettable novel from one of our finest writers." --Douglas Stuart, author ofShuggie Bain

"One of the best writers in the English language . . . [Barry's] soul-wrenching narratives and incantatory prose . . . are powerful canvases of the human spirit." --The Washington Post

"Admirers of Claire Keegan and Niall Williams will appreciate the Irish humor that masks deep sorrow [inOld God's Time]. This novel's words are well chosen, the sentences dazzle, and they all come together in a beautifully told, piercingly sad story." --Library Journal(starred review)

"Barry's novels give us lives, not plots . . . Every one of his novels is luminous. Not one of them sounds like anyone else." --Robert Gottlieb,The New York Review of Books

"The gorgeous writing and unreliable narration make it hard to put down this rewarding take on love and grief." --Publishers Weekly

"Nobody writes like, nobody takes risks like, nobody pushes the language, and the heart, and the two together, quite like Sebastian Barry does." --Ali Smith, author ofAutumnandCompanion Piece

"Sebastian Barry's handling of voice and cadence is masterly. His fictional universe is filled with life, quiet truth and exquisite intimacy; it is also fully alert to the power and irony of history." --Colm Tóibín

"[Barry writes] in language of surpassing beauty . . . It is like a song, with all the pulse of the Irish language, a song sung liltingly and plaintively from the top of Ben Bulben into the airy night." --The New York Times

"Barry's lens is so cohesive, so gracefully rendered, that his words have the stony allure of the Irish poets and the lyrical pull of an epic storyteller." --The Boston Globe

Review Citations:

• Library Journal Prepub Alert 10/01/2022 pg. 2 (EAN 9780593296103, Hardcover)

• Publishers Weekly 01/02/2023 (EAN 9780593296103, Hardcover)

• Library Journal 01/01/2023 pg. 81 (EAN 9780593296103, Hardcover) - *Starred Review