“Excuse me?” She glanced back over her shoulder. He was looking
at her with an expression of utter desolation, such as one rarely saw,
an expression that literally stopped her in her tracks.
When painter Roderic Kennedy meets Julia Fitzpatrick, twenty years
younger and also an artist, it seems as though a long spell of
turbulence and misfortune—including alcoholism and a broken
marriage—has finally come to an end. But when Julia has a chance
meeting with a desperately unhappy stranger, this brief yet powerful
encounter sets in motion a chain of events that has dramatic
consequences for all three.
Set in Ireland, Authenticity is a mesmerizing exploration of
living the creative life as well as the cost of neglecting it. With a
seamless tapestry of voices in various forms—self-reflection, memory,
conversations—Madden offers a remarkable and moving novel that reaches
from the bottom of the soul to the moment of inspiration.
"Word by word, Deirdre Madden is one of Ireland's best hopes for the endurance of serious literature. Authenticity is a tour de force, a meditation on the collision of life and art." —Ilan Stavans
“This is an ideas-driven richly textured novel about what it means to
be an artist in contemporary society…. The cleverly structured
narrative weaves in and out of the past. Authenticity is a powerfully moral book, concerned with the choices one makes in life.” —Sunday Telegraph
“Madden has a lovely lilting style and a storyteller’s eye that makes this one book you won’t want to loan to friends.” —Evening Herald (Dublin)
