The Brightening Air - Paperback

by Conor McPherson (Author)

You'll remember how much of living is really just forgetting.

The family home is more than a building. It's a destination of pilgrimage, an inherited investment, a repository of memory or magic. But for brother and sister Stephen and Billie, home is all they've got. Mucking along in their decaying farmhouse, they're doing just fine.

That is, until the arrival of an ex-clergyman uncle with an unscrupulous plan, a sister-in-law seeking a miracle, and a prodigal brother hell-bent on trouble...

Conor McPherson's play The Brightening Air is an entrancing tale of fate, family, and unseen forces in 1980s Ireland.

Author Biography

Conor McPherson is a playwright, screenwriter and director. His plays include: The Weir (Royal Court, London, Duke of York's, West End and Walter Kerr Theatre, New York; Laurence Olivier, Evening Standard, Critics' Circle, George Devine Awards); Dublin Carol (Royal Court and Atlantic Theater, New York); Port Authority (Ambassadors Theatre, West End, Gate Theatre, Dublin and Atlantic Theater, New York); Shining City (Royal Court, Gate Theatre, Dublin and Manhattan Theatre Club, New York; Tony Award nomination for Best Play); The Seafarer (National Theatre, London, Abbey Theatre, Dublin and Booth Theater, New York; Laurence Olivier, Evening Standard, Tony Award nominations for Best Play); The Night Alive (Donmar Warehouse, London and Atlantic Theater, New York); Girl from the North Country (Old Vic, London); and The Brightening Air (Old Vic, London, 2025). Theatre adaptations Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (West End, 2020) and Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War (Almeida Theatre, 2023), among others. His work for television and cinema includes the films I Went Down, Saltwater, Samuel Beckett's Endgame, The Actors, The Eclipse, and Strangers, as well as an adaptation of John Banville's Elegy for April for the BBC, and the original television drama Paula for BBC2.