Spider Truces

By Tom Connolly

Against the vividly described background of 1980s rural Kent, this moving portrait of a father-son relationship shifts effortlessly between evoking the terrors and joys of adolescence and the complicated pleasure and pain of being an adult. Ellis is obsessed by the spiders that inhabit the crumbling house where he lives with his dad, his older sister, and Great-aunt Mafi—and also by a need to find out more about his mother, whose death overshadows the family's otherwise happy existence. From early attempts at relationships, to unskilled jobs, flat shares, and drug-addled nights on the beach, Ellis muddles his way towards adulthood. Meanwhile Denny, an ex-Merchant Navy man, bottles up his grief at the loss of his wife, refusing to talk about her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Apr 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781908434005

Tom Connolly

Tom Connolly was born in Charleville, County Cork, in 1934, the eighth member of a family of thirteen. His father and grandfather were both policemen. He joined the Garda Síochána in 1955, and retired in 1994, having risen to the rank of Detective Superintendent. He has been commended on many occasions for his impartiality and conscientiousness in conducting investigations, and was awarded the Gold Scott Medal for valour in 1975. Tom won senior county football championships with Clonakilty and with Round Towers, Kildare, and played senior inter-county football with both Cork and Kildare for a number of years. Tom’s wife Maureen died in 2008. He has two sons, both Gardaí, and a daughter. He lives in Naas, County Kildare.