History of the Rain - by Niall Williams (Paperback)

About the Book

"I am utterly obsessed with Niall Williams." -Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Lake

From the author of the November 2025 Late Show with Stephen Colbert Book Club Pick, This Is Happiness, this novel introduces readers to Niall Williams' enchanting Irish village of Faha in a profound, beautifully written book about family, legacy, and the incredible power of stories.

Longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Book Synopsis

"I am utterly obsessed with Niall Williams." -Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Lake

From the author of the November 2025 Late Show with Stephen Colbert Book Club Pick, This Is Happiness, this novel introduces readers to Niall Williams' enchanting Irish village of Faha in a profound, beautifully written book about family, legacy, and the incredible power of stories.

Longlisted for the Booker Prize.

We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. That's how it seems to me, being alive for a little while, the teller and the told.

So says Ruthie Swain. The bedridden daughter of a dead poet, home from college after a collapse, she is trying to find her father through generations of family history in County Clare and through her own writing. Ruthie turns also to the books her father left behind, his library transposed to her bedroom and stacked on the floor.

In her attic room, with the rain rushing down the windows, Ruthie writes Ireland, with its weather, its rivers, its lilts, and its lows. The stories she uncovers and recounts bring back to life multiple generations buried in this soil--and they might just bring her back into the world again, too.

Niall's other novels set in Faha include This Is Happiness and Time of the Child, which are both available now!

Review Quotes

"You can smell the peat burning and feel the ever-present mist in acclaimed Irish novelist Williams' luscious paean to all who lose themselves in books. Williams captures the awe and all of Ireland--its myths and mysteries, miseries and magic--through [Ruth's] pitch-perfect voice." --starred review, Booklist

"Destined to be a classic, Williams's seventh novel isn't just the elegy Ruthie offers to the departed but also a love letter to reading and its life-giving powers. [Her] voice invites comparisons to Jim Hawkins, Ishmael, and hosts of legendary literary narrators." --starred review, Library Journal

"A glorious celebration of [Ireland's] storytelling tradition . . . Sweep[s] the reader joyfully along." --The Daily Telegraph

"History of the Rain is charming, wise and beautiful. It is a love letter to Ireland in all its contradictions, to literature and poetry and family. It acknowledges that faith itself is a paradox, both possible and necessary. And faith carries this novel--faith that stories can save us, that love endures, that acceptance is within reach, and finally, that it is possible to get to the other side of grief." --Shelf Awareness

"A celebration of books, love and the healing power of the imagination." --Irish Independent

About the Author

Niall Williams is the author of ten novels, including History of the Rain, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize, Four Letters of Love, which is now a major motion picture starring Helena Bonham-Carter, Pierce Brosnan and Gabriel Byrne, and the national bestseller This Is Happiness. His most recent novel Time of the Child was an instant national and international bestseller and was awarded the Kerry Group Novel of the Year Award. He lives in Kiltumper in County Clare, with his wife, Christine.