WRITING A perfect novel is the liter- ary equivalent of a baseball grand slam, Hail Mary football pass and hockey hat trick--combined. Few authors have a resonating command on the English language, and fewer still can condense their gift into one brilliant, timely product. John Banville, Ireland's equivalent of Henry Miller, has come close to accomplishing that feat with "Birchwood," a captivating look at family, love, loss and life in a bewildered Ireland.

Originally published in 1973 to critical acclaim, "Birchwood" returns to public view with a new look but the same fully functioning parts. From the imagination of the Man Booker prize-winning author comes a story about Gabriel Godkin, a young man who returns to his family's rundown estate after years of absence. Faced with the reality of his ill-begotten family--his father is a coldhearted kook, his mother is severely neglected and his grandmother is delusional--Godkin finds himself lodged between his childhood memories and his new desire for perspective. Side-stepping between the past and the present--in which Godkin remembers the tangibles of love, death and his country--life casts a heavy shadow over the narrator and his deteriorating family, forcing them to better understand, or at least live with, one another. The inevitable unraveling of Godkin's past and the jury-rigging of his future make for a very provocative and wholly intriguing read.

This isn't a perfect novel, but it certainly comes close. Banville, in all of his comma-happy glory, has crafted a beautiful story that begs to be re-read. Each steroid-strong sentence commands the reader's fullest attention, and we cannot be anything but amazed with the results. The acclaimed author of "The Sea" is generous in his creative liberties and offers readers a buffet of delicious allegories, dialogue and subtle humor to feast on. As he patiently details the decline of the Birchwood estate--and aligns it with the dilapidation of Godkin's family-- Banville wields a strong plot that highlight's Ireland's delicate history and the mad science behind familial dysfunction. While some readers may find that certain stages of the plot are prolonged, or the prose suffocatingly descriptive, the "Birchwood" experience will likely be as entrancing today as it was nearly 25 years ago.