Book Review: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
by Patrick Radden Keefe (364.152 Kee)

This is non-fiction but reads like a mystery/thriller. It describes the three decades of the Troubles in Northern Ireland better than any book I’ve read, giving just enough earlier history of the 1916 Easter Rising to help the reader understand the resentments between groups who do/don’t want Ireland and Northern Ireland to be united & free from British rule. A reoccurring real-life mystery is about Jean McConville, a young widow and mother of 10 children, who “was disappeared” from her Belfast home in 1972.

If you’ve wanted to understand the tension in Northern Ireland, and have context about the roughly 3,500 lives lost during The Troubles, this is the book. The author even surprises the reader at the end by naming Jean McConville’s most likely murderer. Winner of the 2019 Orwell Prize for Political Writing

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Milkman by Anna Burns.]

[ publisher’s official Say Nothing web page ] | [ official Patrick Radden Keefe web site ]

Recommended by Jodi R.
Anderson and Bethany Branch Libraries

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