Shadowplay

Dazzling…the panache and subtlety of his prose perfectly match that gusto and creative finesse of the High Victorian world his novel wonderfully evokes * Sunday Times *A novel I’d recommend to anyone: a rollicking and moving story… Delicious and clever late-Victorian gothic – James Naughtie * Radio Times *An ingenious novel… O’Connor’s work is hugely impressive and utterly haunting * Sunday Mirror *Joseph O’Connor is a very great artist and storyteller. The quotient of enjoyment in his extraordinary new novel is stupendous – Sebastian BarryA hugely entertaining book about the grand scope of friendship and love, it is also, movingly – at times, astonishingly – a story of transience, loss and true loyalty – Sadie Jones * Guardian *A work of Gothic splendour…O’Connor’s writing is always intensely atmospheric. As a romp through Ripper-ravaged London, Shadowplay is mightily entertaining. But as a meditation on hidden sexuality, it is powerful and poignant * Literary Review *A fabulous novel that tells the otherwise largely unknown story of the man behind Gothic horror’s most enduring character… The narrative stretches decades, and throbs with theatrical vigour. This is writing at its most immersive, full of Dickensian pulchritude and pathos. It should, and might well, win prizes – Nick Duerden * i *A rollicking tale… an affecting depiction of artistic and social emancipation… O’Connor’s well-researched theatrical caper offers total immersion in a romantic, lost London… be nourished by a colourful tale of secret love and public performance * The Times *There are few living writers who can take us back in time so assuredly, with such sensual density, through such gorgeous sentences. Joseph O’Connor is a wonder, and Shadowplay is a triumph. – Peter Carey, twice winner of the Booker PrizeGorgeously dark… Shadowplay is an accomplished, compelling read * Herald *

Joseph O’Connor’s fiction has been published in forty languages. His twenty books include eleven novels, among them the million-selling Star of the Sea, Ghost Light, Shadowplay and My Father’s House, a Washington Post Book of the Year. His work has been shortlisted for the LA Times Book Award, twice for the Whitbread/Costa and twice for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and has won the Nielsen Bookscan Golden Book Award, France’s Prix Millepages, Italy’s Premio Acerbi and Premio Napoli, an American Library Association Award, the American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the Hennessy Writer of the Year and Hall of Fame Awards, the Eason/An Post Novel of the Year Award, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, the Irish Pen Award for Outstanding Achievement and the Prix Madeleine Zepter for European Novel of the Year. He is Frank McCourt Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.

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