Morality Play

Barry Unsworth’s detective story set in the 14th century, a time of calamity such as few others have been, marked by war, plague and fear of hellfire.“A learned, witty, satisfying entertainment.” — The New York TimesNicholas Barber, a footloose young cleric, has left his diocese without his Bishop’s leave. He has sung in taverns, he has gambled away his holy relics, and he has committed adultery. Now, to compound his sins, he has joined a troupe of travelling players, a thing expressly forbidden to members of the clergy. Trouble enough, but nothing compared to what happens when the company decides to enact the murder of the young boy called Thomas Wells.“A bravura performance... A thought-provoking comedy on the eternal sameness of disaster and the recurrent uses we put it to in art.” — The New York Times Book Review “A dramatic meditation on the relationship between life and play.” — San Francisco ChronicleBarry Unsworth published 17 novels and is best known for his historical fiction. He was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, winning once for the 1992 novel Sacred Hunger. In the last years of his life, he lived in Perugia, a city in the Umbria region of Italy, with his second wife. His novel After Hannibal is a fictionalised description of his efforts at settlement in the Italian countryside. Booker Prize Finalist The time is the fourteenth century. The place is a small town in rural England, and the setting a snow-laden winter. A small troupe of actors accompanied by Nicholas Barber, a young renegade priest, prepare to play the drama of their lives. Breaking the longstanding tradition of only performing religious plays, the groups leader, Martin, wants them to enact the murder that is foremost in the townspeoples minds. A young boy has been found dead, and a mute-and-deaf girl has been arrested and stands to be hanged for the murder. As members of the troupe delve deeper into the circumstances of the murder, they find themselves entering a political and class feud that may undo them. Intriguing and suspenseful, Morality Play is an exquisite work that captivates by its power, while opening up the distant past as new to the reader. In 14th Century England, a troupe of touring actors arrives in a town where a deaf-and-mute girl awaits execution for murder. They research the crime and perform a play that is closer to the truth than anyone imagined. When the local lord summons them to his castle for a private performance, they know they are in trouble. By the author of Pascali's Island