The title character in Sebastian Barry's new novel "Annie Dunne" is an unmarried woman who had spent years as a housekeeper for her brother-in-law. His wife (Annie's sister) is constantly ill, and when she eventually dies, Annie Dunne is left homeless. Annie goes to live with her cousin Sarah on a small farm in Wicklow. It is the late 1950s, and change is in the air. Old roads are being tarred, and there are more and more cars filling the new roads. Not much changes for Annie and Sarah, however, until a nephew and wife go off to London to work. Their two small children then spend the summer on the farm. What follows is an at times funny, tense and tender rendering of one Irish summer. When it's all over, the children as well as their elders will be changed forever. Barry, the acclaimed playwright of The Steward of Christendom, exhibits a fine ability to keep the reader's interest, even as it seems very little is going on in the way of plot. "Annie Dunne" is ultimately a deeply human portrait of a unique time and place in Ireland. ($24.95 / 228 pages / Viking)