This deeply disturbing book was awarded the Booker Prize in 2023 and was the most popular book in Ireland for some time.

It is set indeed in Ireland but that is just a location. Its relevance is for any country in the world that is passing through a challenging situation. In fact, Syria was mentioned by some as an example.

Whether Ireland or Syria, the country in question finds itself slipping into a hard dictatorship with ordinary citizens finding that their previous freedom has been eroded and that the government has started to ride roughshod over ordinary citizens, helped by a pro-regime small party.

The book's unforgettable protagonist is a mother, Eilish, mother of four children ranging from an almost adult, a girl and a boy still at secondary school and a very small baby.

When the story begins, the father is still at home but, being a trade union leader, finds his freedom is being curtailed. He is picked up and he simply disappears.

With the situation getting worse and worse and turning into a civil war, Eilish finds out her elder son is joining the armed resistance while surprisingly her daughter shows unexpected signs of maturity.

At first Eilish believes things will get better but after losing her husband and then the oldest son, she changes and becomes the Mother Courage of her family, or of what remains of it.

Having lost various opportunities to move to another country and join her sister and with the situation getting from bad to worse, the mother and her children join the refugees and share in the wandering plight of refugees anywhere.

The book leaves us without any real conclusion - but that, in a way, is the story of so many refugees.

This is a densely-packed book without paragraphs and with an extremely descriptive language.

Exhilarating, terrifying, the book is a devastating vision of a country falling apart. It is also a moving portrait of the resilience of the human spirit faced with the darkest of times.