Mother Of Pearl Mary Morrissy by Mary Morrissy 9781473524866, 1473524865, B015COLCQY instant download after payment.

Mother Of Pearl, the first novel by an acclaimed Irish short-story writer, explores the disturbing territory of the divided self.  "Mary Morrissy ranks among the very best... how she writes!" (Fay Weldon).

A tubercular child, Irene is banished to a sanitorium where, long after she is cured, she remains as a ministering angel to the lonely and the sickly - especially the men, whose furtive groping in the dark still leaves her virginal in body and in soul. But when one patient misconstrues her mission, Irene seeks an escape - and a marriage proposal from Stanley Godwin provides it.

"Unsentimental, powerfully emotional, even-handed and generous, the novel has a rare compulsive quality.  It’s extremely unusual for a book to bring tears to my eyes these days, but Mother of Pearl managed it... It is a very fine novel indeed and deserves wide recognition.”  –  Carol Birch: New Statesman & Society

Through the story of the kidnapping of a baby, the notion of personal history as received fiction is examined. The novel asks: what makes a family? Is it mere kinship through blood, or something more profound and intricate? What keeps it together? What tears it apart? The action of the novel is seen through the eyes of a baby's mother, the kidnapper and the child itself. 

Dramatic, blackly funny and tragically topical, Mother Of Pearl is a remarkable achievement.