Summary: Jack McNulty is an Irishman who lived through a great war and the subsequent peace, and who is haunted by his great love. He is a 'temporary gentleman,' whose commission in the British army in the Second World War was never permanent. In 1957, sitting in his lodgings in Accra, he urgently sets out to write his story. McNulty has worked and wandered around the world -- as a soldier, an engineer, a UN observer -- trying to follow his childhood ambition to better himself. He married and shared his life with Mai Kirwan, a great beauty of Sligo in the 1920s, an elusive figure who in time slipped away. Barry is the bestselling author of "The Secret Scripture" (winner of the Irish Book Awards Best Novel and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize). His novels also include "A Long Long Way," which was the Dublin: One City, One Book choice for 2007.
