title: Laying Out the Bones: Death and Dying in the Modern Irish Novel from James Joyce to Anne Enright (Irish Studies)
author: Bridget English
description: A rich, provocative and lyrical meditation on the treatment of death and dying in the work of a wide range of modern Irish writers. English shows that novels provide a secularizing society with a form through which to confront the ultimate experience. Her prose is subtle and poised: and her insights are profound and original. (<i>Declan Kiberd, University of Notre Dame</i>)<br /><br />An original study of a curiously neglected topic in Irish literary studies. With a display of impressive scholarly authority, English ranges from Joyces Ulysses to Enrights The Gathering by way of Beckett, Kate O'Brien and McGahern. She argues that the Irish novel is a secularizing medium that disenchants traditional Catholic conceptions of death and dying but also registers the fear and trembling that all post-religious societies feel in the face of death stripped of sacred consolations or philosophical certainties. This thoughtful, compelling study will open up a whole new set of discussions and debates in Irish Studies. (<i>Emer Nolan, Maynooth University</i>)
zlib_text: PERFECTLY BROKEN
  By
  Emily Jane Trent
  SMASHWORDS EDITION
  *****
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  Chapter 1
  The funeral home in Dublin was large, like a maze, with long hallways and various rooms, each with
  some special purpose. Tomas Dempsey wandered around, uncomfortable about his grandfather’s
  funeral, and expecting to see ghosts at every turn.
  Then he saw a princess, or so she appeared to him. Down