ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR:
NPR • THE ATLANTIC • THE MILLIONS • MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • LIT HUB • LIBRARY JOURNAL • THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
In
the dark waiting room of the ferry terminal in the sketchy Spanish port
of Algeciras, two aging Irishmen—Maurice Hearne and Charlie Redmond,
longtime partners in the lucrative and dangerous enterprise of smuggling
drugs—sit at night, none too patiently. The pair are trying to locate
Maurice’s estranged daughter, Dilly, whom they’ve heard is either
arriving on a boat coming from Tangier or departing on one heading
there.
This nocturnal vigil will initiate an extraordinary
journey back in time to excavate their shared history of violence,
romance, mutual betrayals, and serial exiles. Rendered with the dark
humor and the hardboiled Hibernian lyricism that have made Kevin Barry
one of the most striking and admired fiction writers at work today, Night Boat to Tangier is a superbly melancholic melody of a novel, full of beautiful phrases and terrible men.
