Say Nothing

WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2019 A BARACK OBAMA BEST BOOK OF 2019 SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION 2019 TIME’s #1 Best Nonfiction Book of 2019 A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ‘A must read’ Gillian Flynn One night in December 1972, Jean McConville, a mother of ten, was abducted from her home in Belfast and never seen alive again. Her disappearance would haunt her orphaned children, the perpetrators of the brutal crime and a whole society in Northern Ireland for decades. Through the unsolved case of Jean McConville’s abduction, Patrick Radden Keefe tells the larger story of the Troubles, investigating Dolours Price, the first woman to join the IRA, who bombed the Old Bailey; Gerry Adams, the politician who helped end the fighting but denied his IRA past; and Brendan Hughes, an IRA commander who broke their code of silence. A gripping story forensically reported, Say Nothing explores the extremes people will go to for an ideal, and the way societies mend – or don’t – after long and bloody conflict. ‘10 Best Books of 2019’ – The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Slate, NPR’s Fresh Air ‘Best History Book of 2019’ – Amazon ‘10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019’ – TIME ‘10 Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade’ – Entertainment Weekly ‘20 Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade’ – Literary Hub ‘10 Best True Crime Books of the Decade’ – CrimeReads

TIME’s #1 Best Nonfiction Book of 2019 ‘Say Nothing rightly won this year’s Orwell prize for political writing. It is a superb piece of reportage and writing … It is a book that could become worryingly relevant again.’ Times, the best current affairs and politics books of 2019 ‘In this meticulously reported book – as finely paced as a novel – Keefe uses McConville’s murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland … A searing, utterly gripping saga.’ New York Times, best books of 2019 ‘Breathtaking in its scope and ambition… Keefe has produced a searing examination of the nature of truth in war and the toll taken by violence and deceit… Will take its place alongside the best of the books about the Troubles’ Sunday Times ‘A horrible, chilling tale and I’m glad someone has at last had the guts to tell it. There have been, thus far, only two good books to emerge from the Troubles. This is the third.’ Jeremy Paxman ‘A gripping and profoundly human explanation for a past that still denies and defines the future… Only an outsider could have written a book this good … If conclusions are possible, Radden Keefe’s is that everyone became complicit in the terror… I can’t praise this book enough: it’s erudite, accessible, compelling, enlightening. I thought I was bored by Northern Ireland’s past until I read it.’ Melanie Reid, The Times ‘An exceptional new book, Say Nothing explores this brittle landscape to devastating effect.’ Wall Street Journal ‘Keefe’s narrative is an architectural feat, expertly constructed out of complex and contentious material, arranged and balanced just so… This sensitive and judicious book raises some troubling, and perhaps unanswerable, questions.’ New York Times ‘Vivid and rightly shocking… Say Nothing is an excellent account of the Troubles; it might also be a warning.’ Roddy Doyle

Patrick Radden Keefe is a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine and the author of two critically acclaimed books, The Snakehead and Chatter. He received the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing in 2014, was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Reporting in 2015 and 2016, and is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellowship at the New America Foundation. A former Marshall scholar, he holds Master’s degrees from Cambridge University and the London School of Economics, and a law degree from Yale. He lives in New York