Terrible Beauty: A Novel

by Peter King

Overview

Bernadette Hanlon, a Belfast housewife, strives to keep her children apart from the violence that surrounds them. But the world encroaches when her husband is imprisoned for IRA activities, then the British Army kills a young girl. Threatened on all sides, Bernadette is drawn into the only thing that seems to offer hope: the clandestine world of the IRA.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781568332178
Publisher:	Rinehart, Roberts Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	05/01/1999
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.42(w) x 9.28(h) x 1.24(d)

About the Author

Peter King is co-Chairman of the Congressional Ad Hoc Committee for Irish Affairs and has long been an outspoken advocate of human rights and justice for the people of Northern Ireland. Congressman King lives with his family on Long Island, New York when not in Washington DC.

What People are Saying About This

Malachy McCourt

If you think the face of the so-called terrorist is one of a steely eyed thug, unshaven behind a balaclava, think again. It could be Bernadette, the heroine of Peter King’s Terrible Beauty, a proud, strong North of Ireland woman taunted and wounded by sneering occupation forces, her husband in jail, her children terrified by state violence. Peter King performs an extraordinary literary feat by entering the mind of this woman, taking us on a suspenseful, dizzying journey of the freedom fighter nearly always called “terrorist.” You don’t have to be Irish to read this book—human will do.

Jimmy Breslin

This is the work of a dead honest man. It is fascinating to find a congressman who writes this well, and then goes out and changes the evil he writes about. He calls this work on Northern Ireland Terrible Beauty. My vote says it is a beautiful job of writing.

Editorial Reviews

Behold: the novelist is the diplomat is the politian, Congressman Peter King, whose role in the Irish peace accords helped to put an end to the violence he so vividly depicts.
— Lars-Erik Nelson

New York Daily News

If you think the face of the so-called terrorist is one of a steely eyed thug, unshaven behind a balaclava, think again. It could be Bernadette, the heroine of Peter King's Terrible Beauty, a proud, strong North of Ireland woman taunted and wounded by sneering occupation forces, her husband in jail, her children terrified by state violence. Peter King performs an extraordinary literary feat by entering the mind of this woman, taking us on a suspenseful, dizzying journey of the freedom fighter nearly always called "terrorist." You don't have to be Irish to read this book—human will do.

Malachy McCourt

This is the work of a dead honest man. It is fascinating to find a congressman who writes this well, and then goes out and changes the evil he writes about. He calls this work on Northern Ireland Terrible Beauty. My vote says this is a beautiful job of writing.

Jimmy Breslin

Behold: the novelist is the diplomat is the politian, Congressman Peter King, whose role in the Irish peace accords helped to put an end to the violence he so vividly depicts.

New York Daily News - Lars-Erik Nelson

Set in Northern Ireland...tells the story of...a Belfast housewife...drawn more and more into "important and dangerous" work.

Irish America Magazine

A Republican congressman from New York makes an unfortunate excursion into the politics of Ireland in this debut describing Ulster's Troubles of the early 1980s. A novel written by a politician ought to be regarded much as Dr. Johnson looked upon the dancing bear: One is impressed not so much that it is done well, but that it is done at all. That said, it must still be pointed out that Congressman King has given us a piece of IRA agitprop that Brendan Behan himself wouldn't be able to read with a straight face. Set mostly in Belfast, the story concerns Bernadette Hanlon, a heroic Catholic housewife and mother whose husband Dermot (an IRA member) is imprisoned under special antiterrorism laws on the testimony of an informer. While he's locked away in Castlereagh Gaol, Bernadette contents herself at first with visiting him as often as she can and keeping his spirits up with news of home and children—but circumstances soon force her into a more complex role. She's asked, as an aggrieved IRA wife, to help organize and canvass for the local Sinn Fein candidate, and she succeeds so well that she comes to the attention of Gerry Adams himself, who takes a personal interest in her husband's case. The judicial bane of Irish terrorists in the 1980s was the "supergrass" (or "snake in the grass") system—by which uncorroborated evidence from paid informers was admitted into criminal proceedings—and Bernadette now becomes a prominent spokesman against it. She travels to the US to speak to pro-IRA groups, and at home she assassinates a prominent Catholic politician who was a secret informer. Eventually, her efforts—along with some pressure from US politicians—get herhusband's case reopened. Straight-faced propaganda, without a hint of irony, a shade of complexity, or a suggestion of depth: If King is looking for a photo-op with Gerry Adams, he's earned it.

Kirkus Reviews