A classic novel of family, isolation, and a blighted Ireland from the Man Booker-prize winning author of The Sea - about the end of innocence for a boy and his country. I am therefore I think . So starts John Banville's 1973 novel Birchwood, a novel that centers around Gabriel Godkin and his return to his dilapidated family estate. After years away, Gabriel returns to a house filled with memories and despair. Delving deep into family secrets - a cold father, a tortured mother, an insane grandmother - Gabriel also recalls his first encounters with love and loss. Birchwood is a remarkable and complex story, told in the brilliantly styled prose of one of our most essential writers.