The Law Of Dreams

Winner of the 2006 Governor General's Award for Fiction

'A fabulous book - makes history real enough to smell and so powerful in its emotional impact that I had to remind myself to breathe.'
Kate Grenville, author of The Secret River

In the summer of 1846, young Fergus is forced to grow up fast. Ireland has been devastated by famine, and he has lost not only his family but everything he has loved. Fighting to survive, he sets out on an epic journey that will take him from the west coast of Ireland to the docks and bordellos of Liverpool, and ultimately across the Atlantic. With this unforgettable boy hero at its heart, The Law of Dreams is an extraordinary voyage from innocence to experience.

'Behrens's prose is so evocative, you can almost taste it.'
Literary Review

'I wound up loving this novel. The storytelling is terrific, the writing lyrical, often startling.'
New Yorker

'Such a messy, delirious, risky, big-hearted book: such a treat.'
Nicci Gerrard, Observer