The Hitchhiker Trilogy: 5 Bände (Picador): Guide to the Galaxy / The Restaurant at the End of the Universe / Life, the Universe and Everything / So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish / Mostly Harmless

Eamon Redmond is a judge in Ireland's high court, a completely legal creature who is just beginning to discover how painfully unconnected he is from other human beings. With effortless fluency, Colm Tóibín reconstructs the history of Eamon's relationships - with his father, his first 'girl', his wife and the children who barely know him. He gives us a family as minutely realized as any of John McGahern's and he writes about Eamon's affection for the Irish coast with such painterly skill that the land itself becomes a character.