The Translation of the Bones: From the Winner of the Orange Award for New Writers 2009

(Paperback)

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Description

In a church in Battersea, Mary-Margaret O'Reilly sees blood on her hands and believes she has witnessed a miracle. The consequences are both profound and devastating - not just for her but for others, too.

Father Diamond, the parish priest, struggling with his own faith. Stella, adrift in her marriage and aching for her ten-year old son, away at boarding school. Alice, counting the days until her soldier son comes home. And Mary-Margaret's mother, imprisoned in a tower block with nothing but her thoughts for company...

Reviews

An intense and penetrating exploration of power, isolation, community and faith -- Charlotte Vowden * DAILY EXPRESS *
Kay leads us out to sea in calm waters and then leaves us to battle the waves where religion is by turns a prop, powerful, life-affirming and damaging. -- Alyson Rudd * THE TIMES *
This delicate second novel from the talented writer centres on an unhappily married mother and explores unexpected questions about the dangers and consolations of faith. * METRO *
Kay's superbly intelligent literary novel examines faith and delusion in luminous prose. * THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH SEVEN Magazine *
compelling for anyone interested in how and why religion does or does not work, and the abuses committed in the name of faith. -- Ruth Gledhill * THE TIMES *
Francesca Kay's power lies in the shock of deliberate understatement. Her narrative is underpinned by compassion, even when at its most appalling. * THE TIMES *
This is a fine work from an accomplished author, and its treatment of the thorny subject of religious fervour is well done. * THE SUNDAY BUSINESS POST *
With its fine-grained pattern of voices, its relish for the jostlings of inner-city life and its tender lyricism, the novel offers insight and uplift but no mystical schmaltz. * THE INDEPENDENT *
The author marries acute observation of character and place to a mastery of the silent spaces in which dwell hope and, sometimes, its absence. -- Andrew Norfolk * THE TIMES *
Elegant and perfectly paced... written with great sensitivity and intelligence. * THE GOOD BOOK GUIDE *
That feeling of local magic and mystery has been artfully captured. * ABSOLUTELY BATTERSEA & CLAPHAM *

Author Bio

Francesca Kay grew up in South-east Asia and India and has subsequently lived in Jamaica, the United States and Germany. Her first novel, AN EQUAL STILLNESS, won the Orange Award for New Writers and was shortlisted for the Authors' Club First Novel Award and for Best First Book in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Europe and South Asia region). She lives with her family in Oxford.