History of the Rain
Niall Williams2014

Bedbound in her attic too beneath the rain, in the margin between this world and the next, Plain Ruth Swain is in search of her father. To find him, Ruthie must first trace her ancestry, the jutting jaw lines, narrow faces and gleamy skin of the Swains, from the restless Reverend Swain, her great-grandfather, to grandfather Abraham, to her father Virgil - via pole-vaulting, salmon fishing, poetry and the three thousand, nine hundred and fifty-eight books piles high in her room, beneath the rain. The stories, of the dogged pursuit of the Swains' Impossible Standard and the wild rain-sodden history of fourteen acres of the worst farming land in Ireland, pour forth in Ruthie's small, strong, hopeful voice.

Titre original : History of the Rain (2014)