The Red and the Green

Book excerpt: A novel about a troubled Irish family on the eve of the Easter Rising by a Man Booker Prize–winning author. In 1916, with the First World War raging across Europe, Andrew Chase-White, lieutenant in the British army, travels to Ireland to see his family. Though he was raised in England by Protestant parents, many of his relations still live on the Emerald Isle, and are Catholic and nationalist through and through. Andrew’s arrival in Dublin is the only spark needed to ignite old resentments, new passions, political tensions, and religious crises, sending the family into a torrent of fights and alliances, affairs and betrayals. And as the historic gunfire begins at the General Post Office on the day of the Easter Rebellion, the lives of Andrew and his relations will be indelibly changed. At once an exploration of the tumultuous political landscape of World War I Dublin and an examination of family, love, and loyalty, The Red and the Green is a compelling novel of Englishness and Irishness that continues to stand the test of time and history.