num_pages: 280
description: A deeply resonant story about three generations of an estranged family reuniting to mourn an untimely death. It is the early 1990s, and Helen O’Doherty, her mother Lily, and her grandmother Dora, have come together in a crumbling old house along Ireland’s coastal southeast to tend Helen’s adored brother Declan, who is dying of AIDS. With two of Declan’s friends, the six of them are forced to plumb the shoals of their own histories and to come to terms with each other. Written in a spare, powerful prose, this is a moving novel about the capacity of stories to heal the deepest wounds.
language: English
title: The Blackwater Lightship
titlecomplete: The Blackwater Lightship
genres: Irish Literature, Fiction, Queer, Literature, Ireland, Gay, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Novels, LGBT
ratings_count: 6743
places: Ireland
awards: awardedAt: 915177600000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Dublin Literary Award
category: Shortlist
publisher: Emblem Editions