Patrick Holloway: The Language of Remembering

‘You can hear him a little way away but in each direction he is not there. You keep walking and in a clearing he is sitting on a bench waiting for you. You walk to him but never seem to get any closer. His arms reach out for you. He looks up and you follow his gaze and the sky, greyed by clouds, is full of little finches, golden and maple and autumn-leaved, and they fly so beautifully and freely.’

The Language of Remembering asks how we connect to the people we love and how we move on from the past to find meaning in the present.

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‘Holloway is a rare and immense talent. The Language of Remembering is full of the grit and texture and sweetness of life, the sorrow of loss, the wonderful, terrible mystery of our humanity. The characters feel real, their voices sing from the page and the writing is sublime. I loved every line of this novel, readers are going to love it too – it will soar.’ Donal Ryan