The Lilliput Press Ltd

An Apology For Roses - John Broderick

First published in 1973 and swiftly banned, John Broderick’s An Apology for Roses returns as one of the most audacious portraits of provincial Ireland ever written. Set in a midlands town where respectability masks obsession, corruption and thwarted desire, the novel follows the intersecting lives of Marie Fogarty – clever, restless, dangerously sure of her own charm – and Father Tom Moran, the charismatic curate drawn into her orbit. Around them spin the claustrophobic rituals of family, gossip, religion and commerce: suffocating drawing-rooms heated to excess, whispered devotions, clandestine meetings in lakeside chalets, nights of hunger, fear, exhilaration and betrayal. Broderick exposes the hypocrisies of Irish Catholic life with wit, psychological acuity and a fearless eye for the erotic and the grotesque. A novel banned in its own time for its frankness, An Apology for Roses stands now as a darkly glittering masterpiece, bold, unsettling, and unforgettably alive.

Product names and technical specifications are provided by merchants. Always confirm the exact variant in the merchant’s checkout.