“If the written word could cure rheumatism I think hers might, like a dock leaf laid on a sting”

Emily Dickinson’s house in Amherst, Massachusetts is turned upside down with the arrival of a 17-year-old Irish maid-of-all-works, Ada Concannon, into its scullery in Nuala O’Connor’s novel.

IT’S A LONG way from the Arctic that Cormac James was reared. Born and raised in Ballincollig in Cork — when he was still Cormac McCarthy — Cormac James has lived in Montpellier in France for the past 12 years.

By Sue Leonard