Michael McLaverty is one of Ireland"s finest writers. His novels provide a unique account of life in the north of Ireland, a portrayal of a troubled province that is blessed by clarity and unblinking realism. His Collected Short Stories, published by Poolbeg in 2978, confirmed him as a master of that most Irish of literary forms and showed, as Seamus Heaney wrote in his introduction, a comprehension of the central place of suffering and sarifice in the life of the spirit. He worked at his craft for fifty years, combining with it the exhausting vocation of teaching. Poolbeg have reissued his eight novels and all of his writings, novels, short stories, criticism, journals and letters, are now in print.The Silken Twine is a timely study of this master craftsmand and it is written by the leading autority on his work, Sophia Hillan King. Dr King is already known to Poolbeg readers as the compiler and editor of In Quiet Places, a book which contains almost all of McLaverty"s writings not otherwise available in book form. Her work is the result of years of research and many conversations with the writer and his family. The result is a kind of spiritual and artistic biography; it details McLaverty"s formative years, the early publications, the writing of Call My Brother Back, his first and most popular novel, his decision in the mid-Forties to become a specifically Catholic novelist and his rejection of the short story at this time. She is particularly revealing and sympathetic about the loneliness of this period and the grief and misunderstanding that his decision cost him. The Silken Twine is an indespensable companion for those who would like to know the workings of a writer"s mind and it will arouse new interest and appreciation in the general reader and the student alike in the works of a man who is at once so uncompromising and so tender.