Say Nothing

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY
Soon to be an FX TV series streaming on DISNEY+
'Unquestionably one of the greatest literary achievements of the 21st century' Nick Hornby
From the author of Empire of Pain – a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.
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 this terrible crime and a whole society in Northern Ireland for decades.
In this powerful, scrupulously reported book, Patrick Radden Keefe offers not just a forensic account of a brutal crime but a vivid portrait of the world in which it happened. The tragedy of an entire country is captured in the spellbinding narrative of a handful of characters, presented in lyrical and unforgettable detail.
A poem by Seamus Heaney inspires the title: ‘Whatever You Say, Say Nothing’. By defying the culture of silence, Keefe illuminates how a close-knit society fractured; how people chose sides in a conflict and turned to violence; and how, when the shooting stopped, some ex-combatants came to look back in horror at the atrocities they had committed, while others continue to advocate violence even today.
Say Nothing deftly weaves the stories of Jean McConville and her family with those of Dolours Price, the first woman to join the IRA as a front-line soldier, who bombed the Old Bailey when barely out of her teens; Gerry Adams, who helped bring an end to the fighting, but denied his own IRA past; Brendan Hughes, a fearsome IRA commander who turned on Adams after the peace process and broke the IRA’s code of silence; and other indelible figures. By capturing the intrigue, the drama and the profound human cost of the Troubles, the book presents a searing chronicle of the lengths that people are willing to go to in pursuit of a political ideal, and the ways in which societies mend – or don’t – in the aftermath of a long and bloody conflict.

Reviews

A Best Book of the Year: The Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Economist, GQ, Slate, NPR, Variety, Slate, Buzzfeed
WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING
ONE OF DUA LIPA'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
‘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 Book of the Year
‘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, A Book of the Year
‘Unforgettable… Radden Keefe examines the profound human cost of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the lengths that people will go to in pursuit of a political ideal’
Dua Lipa, A Book of the Year
‘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’
The Times
‘An exceptional new book, Say Nothing explores this brittle landscape to devastating effect’
Wall Street Journal
‘The best book I’ve read for a while, it’s fantastic’
John Oliver