I don't know why Sebastian Barry hasn't won the Booker Prize (except that I do know - these literary prizes being a bit hit-and-miss and lotteryish). Any of Barry's last four novels would have been a deserving winner in its year and, having just read Annie Dunne, I'd like to share my enthusiasm for it with anyone willing to listen. On the cover of my edition, Colm Tóibín is quoted as calling it a masterpiece - and that is just what I reckon it is, a compact masterpiece.
It centres on the life of Annie Dunne, a single woman in her sixties living with her cousin Sarah on a small farm in Ireland, and the effect on her when her great-niece and great-nephew are left by their parents to be looked after by the two women. The book is about daily life on the farm, about the way the children's presence impacts on this, and above all about Annie's inner life. Like all of Barry's books it is beautifully written, his poetic, sometimes biblical, prose serving to emphasize the weight of a life obscure to all but its 'owner' and the people close to her. It is also about the effort, the difficulty in the way, and the enduring nature, of individual human goodness. Annie Dunne reminded me - in different ways - of John McGahern's Amongst Women and Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Home. In my book, there's no higher praise than that.
