In his new novel, The Dead School, McCabe returns to the same rich, emotionally dense landscape of small-town Ireland that made The Butcher Boy unforgettable. Here he explores the inner lives of two men, each the product of a soul-stifling culture, each battling his own demons of loss and betrayal.

When Malachy Dudgeon, a bright, sensitive child, discovers his mother's infidelities and his father's standing as the town cuckold, he is doomed forever to believe that the only place for love is "in the grave." Decades earlier in a different town, "goody-goody" Raphael Bell decides to forego the priesthood and become a teacher. Years pass and Bell thrives in his chosen profession, becoming Headmaster - until times begin to change.

New ideas are invading the strict provincial Catholic culture he loves, unhinging old ways, pulling Ireland and an unwilling Bell into the future.

Along with them comes Malachy Dudgeon, now grown and teaching at Bell's school, distracted to the point of madness by an adult love of his own - a love most definitely "in the grave." Tension coils - until tragedy strikes a student in their charge and the latent despair, rage and helplessness lying below the surface of the two men explode, ending in a denouement of heartbreaking, startling power.