From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan

This was long listed for the Booker Prize, and is from an acclaimed Irish novelist. 
The novel is divided into four sections, the first three of which feature characters whose stories initially appear to have no relationship to each other. Farouk is a Syrian refugee, escaping his homeland with his wife and daughter for what he hopes will be a brighter future in western Europe. Ryan keeps the pace deliberately slow, with long, dense paragraphs that are as absorbing as they are convincing. An educated man and a doctor, Farouk’s story develops in a manner that I suspect is painfully familiar to anyone who has been forced to flee the country of their birth under cover of night.

The next two sections find Ryan on more recognisable terrain. A young man, Lampy, recovering from his first broken heart, lives with his mother and grandfather while working in a care home, driving old people to and from hospital on a private bus. The tone switches dramatically here but the reader quickly warms to Lampy’s brutally honest, moving and often hilarious narrative. Finally, there is the elderly John, an accountant and lobbyist filled with remorse over a failed relationship with a much younger woman. Ultimately he is not a good person.  The last quarter of the book ties the three of them together.  Beautifully written.