Ann Marie Hourihane is the most elegant and insightful chronicler of contemporary Ireland. In Sorry for Your Trouble she explores perhaps the most distinctive aspect of its culture with compassion, erudition, wit and a wonderful precision of feeling and expression. This is, paradoxically, an endlessly vivid reflection, not just on Irish life, but on life itself. Funny, brilliant and deeply moving, it is a lamp to hold up against the dying of the light Fintan O'Toole