The Ribs Beneath the Skin

A snowy January night in Dublin, two old aunts giving their annual dance, and the last story in the book. Dubliners ends with The Dead, and John Banville refuses to rush it: this is the first of two episodes inside the story. He has been rereading it since he was a boy, and what he sees in it now is not awe, exactly. He starts with the story's first sentence, one word most editors would strike, and a whole method hiding behind it. Then Gabriel Conroy comes through the door with a speech in his pocket, and the night begins to work on him.