''Exquisite.'' Damon Galgut ''Masterly.'' The Times ''Miraculous.'' Herald ''Astonishing.'' Colm Toibin ''Stunning.'' Sunday Independent ''Absolutely beautiful.'' Douglas Stuart A Book of the Year in The Times and The New Statesman It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church. ''A genuine once-in-a-generation writer.'' The Times ''[A] snowglobe of a story that fits a whole bustling, striving, yearning world into 114 finely wrought pages.'' Sunday Times ''Powerful and affecting and very timely . . . deeply moving.'' Hilary Mantel ''Stunning . . . A haunting, hopeful masterpiece.'' Sinead Gleeson ''Remarkable . . . Truly exquisite.'' Daily Telegraph ''A restrained and intensely moral book, full of hope and love.'' Observer ''Marvellous - exact and icy and loving all at once.'' Sarah Moss