Vendor
	Fletcher Agency Melissa Chinchillo
Original language
English

UNSPOKEN

A family. A decade. A nation. UNSPOKEN charts the interlocking stories of a group of very different characters through the 1960s, a tumultuous decade during which Ireland threw off some ancient shackles and assumed some other, more modern ones. Alive with character and understated ambition, it is both a magnificent work of literature and an absolute delight.

On Election Day, 17 June 1959, Ann Strong gives birth to her fifth child, Francis a child of the era and the heart of the novel. In the hospital waiting room, her husband sits anxiously with four other fathers-to-be. From varying backgrounds, they are men of their time and scarcely speak to each other. But their children, born together on this day, will grow up in a changed world.

Francis Strong is inquisitive and very much a product of his time; he witnesses dramatic social and cultural change. By the novel's end, he is ten years old, but already the world and its possibilities are very different to that of his parents and older siblings. Gavin Bloom is floor manager on the first-ever live television broadcast in Ireland. He can hardly believe that he has landed such a prestigious job, but a part of him feels a fraud. Though talking is what he does best, there is one thing Gavin never speaks about not even to himself. Dom is a brash, clever, reckless politician, sees himself as an Irish JFK. When he is prosecuted for drunk driving, his career seems to be over. But then he and the policeman who has charged him come face to face in court. They don't exchange a word, but something happens between them that changes Dom's life and propels him to help change the lives of every child in the country.

Unspoken richly imagines real figures and historical events. Born in 1958, Stembridge authentically captures the feel of the sixties this is a novel "of" the 1960s as well as "about" the 1960s.

GERRY STEMBRIDGE is a writer for film and television who lives in Ireland. He is the author of two novels: Counting Down and According to Luke (both Penguin Ireland). His film credits in-clude the screenplay for Ordinary Decent Criminal (starring Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell and Linda Fiorentino) and he co-wrote Nora (a film about James Joyce and his wife Nora Barnacle, starring Ewan McGregor and Susan Lynch). His directing credits include About Adam (starring Kate Hudson and Stuart Townsend), Guilttrip, Blackday at Black Rock. He is also the co-creator, with Dermot Morgan, of Scrap Saturday, a political satire for radio.