Faber announces Sebastian Barry’s deeply moving new novel

Old God’s Time, the new novel by the twice winner of the Costa Book of the Year Sebastian Barry, will be published by Faber on 2 March 2023.

Angus Cargill acquired UK & Commonwealth rights from Derek Johns and Natasha Fairweather at RCW. Viking will publish in the US on 21 March 2023.

Recently retired policeman Tom Kettle is settling into the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a Victorian Castle overlooking the Irish Sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, catching only glimpses of his eccentric landlord and a nervous young mother who has moved in next door. Occasionally, fond memories of the past return, of his family, his beloved wife, June, and their two children.

But when two former colleagues turn up at his door with questions about a decades-old case, one which Tom never quite came to terms with, he finds himself pulled into the darkest currents of his past.

A beautiful, haunting novel, in which nothing is quite as it seems, Old God’s Time is about what we live through, what we live with and what may survive of us.

Angus Cargill, Publishing Director, said:

‘Returning to the landscape of Ireland in the second half of the twentieth century with this new masterpiece, Sebastian Barry shows us, yet again, that he is one of the most empathetic and soulful storytellers we have. The reckoning of Tom Kettle will haunt and move readers for years to come.’

Faber will release a special edition of Old God’s Time for independent bookshops and also an audio edition, to be read by the author for the first time.