Once We Sang Like Other Men

'I'm not an impulsive person. Twice in my life I've done impulsive things. The first time was when I packed a bag, walked out on my wife and kids, left my job and hit the road to follow the Captain. Goodbye was all she wrote.' These wide-ranging stories follow the disparate disciples of the Captain - a mysterious, powerful and magnetic figure whose violent and chaotic death at the hands of the army radically alters their lives in myriad ways. From rural North American farms and dive bars to the suburbs of Ireland and the sands of Palestine, we witness their struggles to find a place, a peace, in a world that is fractured and incomplete. Once We Sang Like Other Men is a surprising, mysterious, lyrical and affecting collection with a stunning range of voice from a recognised master of the form.

John MacKenna is the author of fifteen books - novels, short-story collections, memoir, poetry and biography - and a number of radio and stage plays. He is a winner of The Irish Times; Hennessy and Cecil Day Lewis Awards. He is also a winner of a Jacobs Radio award for his documentary series on Leonard Cohen and a Worldplay Silver Medal (New York) for his radio play The Woman at the Window (RTE Radio 1) . He lives in Co Carlow and lectures in Creative Writing at NUIM.