''Exquisite.'' Damon Galgut ''Masterly.'' The Times ''Miraculous.'' Herald ''Astonishing.'' Colm Toibin ''Stunning.'' Sunday Independent ''Absolutely beautiful.'' Douglas Stuart A Book of the Year in The Times and The New Statesman It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church. ''A genuine once-in-a-generation writer.'' The Times ''[A] snowglobe of a story that fits a whole bustling, striving, yearning world into 114 finely wrought pages.'' Sunday Times ''Powerful and affecting and very timely . . . deeply moving.'' Hilary Mantel ''Stunning . . . A haunting, hopeful masterpiece.'' Sinead Gleeson ''Remarkable . . . Truly exquisite.'' Daily Telegraph ''A restrained and intensely moral book, full of hope and love.'' Observer ''Marvellous - exact and icy and loving all at once.'' Sarah Moss SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE, THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD AND THE IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AT THE DALKEY LITERARY AWARDS