Two years ago, Michael Fishwick at Bloomsbury asked me to come in and tell him about the novel I was working on. At the time I was three years in and had lost faith in it. When I walked out into Bedford Square later I had refound it. My heartfelt thanks to Michael, to Anna Simpson, Oliver Holden-Rea and copyeditor Sarah-Jane Forder, to Kathy Belden in New York and all at Bloomsbury for their dedication and enthusiasm and generally being the kind of publisher Ruth dreamt of in Faha.
I am grateful to my brother Paul for his continued support and belief in my writing, to Deirdre Breen, Carlo Gebler, Donal Tinney, Allen Flynn, Lucy and Larry Blake, Pauline and Martin Hehir, and all the others who offered encouragement along the way; to the members of the Kiltumper Book Club, Marie O’Leary, Martin Keane, Marjorie Lynch, Dermot Mahony, Grainne Heneghan, Siobhan Phelan, Isobel O’Dea, Mary Cuffe, Jack Mannion, Carmel Mahony and Colette Keane, who have taught me so much about the pleasures of narrative and renewed my faith in stories.
Finally, to Deirdre and Joseph, and to Chris, as Virgil Swain says: ‘You are the meaning.’ For everything, thank you.
A Note on the Author
Niall Williams was born in Dublin in 1958. He is the author of eight novels including John and Four Letters of Love for which he has recently completed the screenplay for Element Pictures. He lives in Kiltumper in County Clare, with his wife, Christine.
niallwilliams.com
By the Same Author
Four Letters of Love
As It Is In Heaven
The Fall of Light
Only Say the Word
The Unrequited
Boy in the World
Boy and Man
John
Also available by Niall Williams
John
‘An eloquent and moving statement of the power of love and the belief that it will triumph in the end’ Barry Unsworth, Guardian
Aged, blind and perilously frail, John the Apostle has walked ten thousand miles to tell of love. In a hundred years he has lived to witness sights and scenes that now cloud his mind. Of his followers, there are few remaining, banished with him to an island where they wait. They wait as storm clouds whip the island with rain. They wait for the world to free them from exile. They wait for signs that seem like they will never come.
But eventually a sign does come and together the disciples leave the island. They embark on a journey that will change their lives forever: a journey filled with purpose and fear which will test their belief – in love and in each other – to breaking point, and John must face his biggest battle yet. Romantic, wild and passionate, John is the story of what it might be to love for a lifetime.
‘Gripping and believable … It is important that serious writers such as Williams face the perennial questions of faith and love’ Irish Times
‘Powerful and moving … an absorbing and intelligent novel’ Times Literary Supplement
‘What beguiles about John is the power and poetry of Williams’s language … demands to be read in one sitting’ Independent
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Copyright © 2014 by Niall Williams
“River” from Three Books © Estate of Ted Hughes and reprinted
by kind permission of Faber and Faber Ltd
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Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA HAD BEEN APPLIED FOR
ISBN: 978-1-62040-648-9
First published in Great Britain in 2014
First U.S. edition 2014
This electronic edition published May 2014
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