“It’s the first time ever that your mother and I have actually felt deeply ashamed of one of our children. We completely fail to comprehend how you could treat anybody like that.” The Butlers are back, as Niki Phillips’s second novel about the family takes up their story in the 1960s and we encounter Milo Butler once more. Father of a growing family, he is now his generation’s custodian of Riverside House. The story opens with a kidnapping and family members later become involved in the terrorist attacks in Dublin in the seventies, the invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and the Falklands War in 1982. Niki Phillips delivers another page-turner in which excitement, drama and tragedy stalk the lives of family members. But love and success are there too, with a lacing of humour through the rich tapestry of the story. “The lives of this engaging family are set against a back drop of well researched recent history . . . contrasting the personal with the political sweep of the times. An absorbing modern day saga.” Chris Bridger, Book Reviewer “A broad and interesting story, loads of great characters . . . It is a warming story, where all can return home to the safety of the hearth at Riverside.” Paul Wheatley, Writer

Rev. ed. of: Notes for Joyce: an annotation of James Joyce's Ulysses, 1974.