The Temporary Gentleman

Jack McNulty, a former UN observer, has worked around the world and seen extraordinary things but, as he contemplates his return to Ireland after many years, his memories are dominated by his tumultuous marriage to Mai Kirwan. A great beauty with a vivid mind, Mai was also an elusive and troubled soul, stuck in a marriage that couldn't last.

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A stunning return from the prize-winning and best-selling author ofThe Secret Scripture

Jack McNulty is a ''temporary gentleman'', an Irishman whose commission in the British army in the Second World War was never permanent. In 1957, sitting in his lodgings in Accra, he urgently sets out to write his story. He feels he cannot take one step further, or even hardly a breath, without looking back at all that has befallen him.

He is an ordinary man, both petty and heroic, but he has seen extraordinary things. He has worked
and wandered around the world - as a soldier, an engineer, a UN observer - trying to follow his childhood ambition to better himself. And he has had a strange and tumultuous marriage. Mai Kirwan was a great beauty of Sligo in the 1920s, a vivid mind, but an elusive and mysterious figure too. Jack married her, and shared his life with her, but in time she slipped from his grasp.

A heart-breaking portrait of one man''s life - of his demons and his lost love - The Temporary Gentleman is, ultimately, a novel about Jack''s last bid for freedom, from the savage realities of the past and from himself.

• | Author: Sebastian Barry
• | Publisher: Faber & Faber
• | Publication Date: Feb 05, 2015
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language:
• | Binding: Paperback / softback
• | ISBN-13: 9780571276998
• | ISBN-10: 0571276997