Published to great acclaim in 1996, Reading in the Dark was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It is the coming-of-age story of a young, working-class boy growing up in Derry in the late 1940s and 50s. The unnamed narrator is the third oldest of seven children in a working-class Catholic family. Slowly, he begins to unravel the mystery surrounding his family’s past and discovers a web of secrets, lies and betrayals.

Following the extract below, in the same chapter, the narrator goes to the cinema with Irene Mackey and a group of friends. ‘With everyone else we jeered at the advertisements and a documentary about growing wheat on the Canadian plains. Then the real movie – a thriller began. I inched closer to Irene, and she snuggled in towards me. Someone behind kicked the back of my chair and laughed.’

The group of friends spend a lot of the film telling jokes and chatting and are told to be quiet – the ‘usherette’s torch danced over us, and we slid down a little in our seats. Everybody shushed’. After the film, the narrator and Irene kiss before he gets hit by Grenaghan, her boyfriend.