'Fearless and frank and sometimes comic' Colm Tóibín

'I absolutely loved The Pilgrimage... Brilliant... A book about what it feels like to live with doubt and still keep going' Orla Mackey

'A brooding and beautifully observed short novel' Jan Carson

Someone knows about Julia Glynn's affair. She and husband Michael are the envy of their neighbours: prosperous, devout, the model couple. Then one day, an anonymous letter arrives with the morning papers, describing Julia's trysts with Michael's nephew in obscene detail.

Frantic with suspicion and frustrated desire, Julia imagines catastrophe in their small, curtain-twitching town. As the letters keep arriving, she struggles to retain composure and proceed with plans for a family pilgrimage to Lourdes - only for other buried scandals to come knocking at the door of their pristine home.

Frank in its depiction of sexuality and queerness in 1950s Ireland, The Pilgrimage was immediately banned on original publication. Outrageous and bleakly funny, it is a powerful evocation of the corrosive effects of repression.

"Pulsating with passion, parochialism, guilt and greed, this exposé of scandal and secrets is shocking and witty" - Daily Mail

"A sour and lasting portrait of what boils beneath kept-up appearances" - New York Times

"A taut stylish book that surely read like an incendiary device at the time... Broderick's tightly controlled style is awash with the sharp humour of recognition" - Sunday Independent (Dublin)

"At its best, the novel's simmering moods and atmosphere of squandered potential and sexual deception recall Tennessee Williams" - LRB