Spice Level
Cover of Cal
literary fiction · 1983 · estimated

Cal

Spice · 2 of 5

One or two intimate scenes, fade to black or lightly described.

Explicitness · 1 of 3

Euphemistic. Softened or poetic language, little direct anatomy.

Estimated from the blurb · 0 reader votes

Tropes

Content warnings

  • war
  • graphic-violence
  • murder
  • grief
  • death-of-partner

Blurb

"Bernard MacLaverty's powerful novel is a love story as affecting and tragic as you could want." — USA Today When it was first published, Bernard MacLaverty's masterpiece was hailed by Michael Gorra in the  New York Times Book Review  as "a marvel of technical perfection…a most moving novel whose emotional impact is grounded in a complete avoidance of sentimentality…[It] will become the  Passage to India of the Troubles." For Cal, a Northern Irish teenager who, against his will, is involved in the terrible war between Catholics and Protestants, some of the choices are devastatingly simple: he can work in the slaughterhouse that nauseates him or join the dole line; he can brood on his past or plan a future with the beautiful, widowed Marcella for whose grief he shares more than a little responsibility.

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