Reading in the Dark Study Guide & Plot Synopsis

Reading in the Dark Plot Summary

Preview of Reading in the Dark Summary:

Reading in the Dark is the personal account of the boy narrator's childhood and youth in 1940s and 1950s Northern Ireland. The boy's Catholic family has associations with the Irish Liberation Army (IRA) and through his telling of the family's story we learn how politics and wider events can have deeply wounding effects on individuals and their personal relationships.

The storyline centers on the mystery surrounding the boy's Uncle Eddie, his father's brother, who reputedly escaped from Northern Ireland after being discovered as an IRA informer, following the famous shoot-out between the police and the IRA at a local distillery in 1922. Over time, the boy discovers that his uncle was actually executed as an informer by his own people; the boy's grandfather-his mother's father-ordered the murder. It later emerges that Eddie was innocent and that the real informer was a man called Tony McIlhenny. McIlhenny had married the boy's...
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