The Cure: A Novel

A hundred years ago, in a land of myths, a woman named Bridget Cleary was in need of curing.Married for over a year now, with pregnancy still eluding her, Bridget hoped that a renowned fertility rite would bring an end to her barren spell. But as further childless years went by, the good people of Tipperary came to the conclusion that other forces were at work. There was talk even of possession, and fairies, and the need for a second cure to free her of her burden.A hundred years later, the story of Bridget Cleary is recalled in a final attempt to account for the extraordinary. But as the story again casts its curious spell, a spell that has obsessed generations before him, its latest author finds the unravelling of myth to be an unexpected avenue to the furies of his past.Carlo Gebler's The Cure is an example of a skill which sometimes seems the exception rather than the rule in modern fiction: the art of telling a good story well. Gebler blends Irish folklore with universal truths in a novel that is acute, shocking, and brilliantly accomplished.