Marvel story

This tale of a pianist who finds love and renewal before mystical forces intervene is a reminder of Neil Jordan's gifts as a writer

-  John Banville

West Cork is a place apart. In the last third of the last century it became something of a refuge for those hoping to forge - a suitably ambiguous verb - what used to be known as an "alternative lifestyle". There are still quite a few antiquated hippies down there, as well as a few artistic types and the odd retired media tycoon. Something of the old magic survives; step into the market in Skibbereen on a Saturday morning and, despite the rain and the grey hair all round, it could be Berkeley, 1968

But something survives too of an older magic, one that goes back to the pre-Christian Ireland of the sídhe, or fairy folk, and Yeats's sorcerer queens and tragic warriors, and it pervades The Well of Saint Nobody, Neil Jordan's beautiful and deceptively simple tale of love, rejuvenation and losses restored.

A retired English concert pianist, William Barrow, has settled in an unnamed west Cork village. The place is as dull as anywhere else can be but will become, for him, the capital of Tír na nÓg - the Land of Youth.