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FICTION:The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry Faber & Faber, 300pp. £12.99 Sebastian Barry's beautiful and disturbing new novel is a stirring indictment of Ireland's patriarchal attitudes, writes Patricia Craig.

SEBASTIAN BARRY SETS out his current purpose in the second epigraph to his new novel, from Maria Edgeworth's preface to Castle Rackrent, and in certain opening reflections of his principal narrator. In the face of so much historial uncertainty, Edgeworth says, the seeker after truth is necessarily drawn to all manner of "secret memoirs and private anecdotes". The story of Roseanne McNulty, recounted here, comes under that heading as, in her final days, she struggles to leave "some kind of brittle and honest-minded history of myself" - not only a memoir, but an illumination of anti-heroic and distorted trends in the country.