Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 133
New Irish Fiction
The Walled Garden by Catherine Dunne (Hardback; 18.00 IEP / 23.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
Beth flew the coop as soon as she could, making a life for herself in London. James, her more dutiful brother, stayed in Dublin, raising a family not far from their mother, Alice. Now Alice is dying and Beth has returned to the shabby grandeur of her childhood home to keep vigil by her bedside. Unable to speak, the only way Alice feels she can bridge the gap of misunderstanding between her and Beth is to write to her to seek reconciliation. Set during the last days of Alice's life, this novel explores the fragile nature of a mother-daughter relationship, its hopes and expectations, its guilt and regrets. It is also an extraordinarily perceptive novel about childhood and growing old, magical and gripping in subtlety of its telling.
Track & Field by Cormac James (Paperback; 8.99 IEP / 11.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
Set in the immediate aftermath of civil war in Ireland, this novel tells the story of a thirty-six hour journey in which three brothers set out to return the remains of a fourth member of their party to its final resting place. As events unfold, however, it becomes clear the chaos they encounter enroute only mirrors the violent anarchy in their own relations. Unspoken tensions, both personal and patriotic, continue to mount until one roadblock too many sets the scene for an intense and brutal climax. Underscored by a dark and sometimes vicious humour, this novel is a compelling story of three men's struggle to express their own desolation, as well as a sharp-edged snapshot of a fledgling state.
Any Other Time by John Trolan (Paperback; 8.99 IEP / 11.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
It's 1986, Dublin. Meet Davy Bleedin' Byrne. Hardworking, enterprising, and full of initiative, Davy is a sign of the time. Dribbling at the brim with intent, and with the reluctant support of his buddy Mickey Hughes, Davy doesn't take what he thinks should be his, he takes what he wants. The consequences are comical, disastrous and tragic. This novel evokes a time and a place with startling immediacy. Set in the underworld of junkie Dublin and refreshingly written from the inside out, it conveys the inescapable feeling that nothing has been omitted, besides the numbers on the doors.
Take 2 by Marian Murphy (Paperback; 6.99 IEP / 9.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
Clare looked around her apartment one last time, took a deep breath, and left. The click of the door behind her had a satisfying finality. Now all she had to do was find a life she might want to live. Clare needs escape - from the city, from a humdrum career, from the aftermath of a disastrous love affair. And for Clare 'escape' means only one thing: her little cottage in Connemara in the West of Ireland. There, she finds herself converting the cottage outbuildings into holiday home and though her blueprint does not include a new man in her life, relationships too have a way of developing …
Big Mouth by Blanaid McKinney (Hardback; 23.80 IEP / 30.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book is the author's first book, a collection of eleven superbly-crafted short stories. These are stories of jewel-like precision, the work of a writer passionate about the word. A beautiful young man systematically trashes the car that destroyed his world, piece by piece, with calm violence in the shimmering metallic heat. A middle-aged woman attains a kind of release from her mute husband - an underground train driver silenced by the horror of a 'leaper' - in London's subterranean waterways. Again and again, McKinney returns to her fascination with the power of the voice, her characters finding freedom of speech in the author's own extraordinary imagination.
The Largest Baby in Ireland After the Famine by Anne Barnett (Paperback; 14.00 IEP / 18.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
This novel is set in mid-Ulster, during World War I. Every Sunday the men meet at the bridge. Felix Campbell was there with a couple dozen others. Farmers all, some creating the impression that they lived a more urgent and passionate existence in the fighting fields of France than in the potato fields of reality. Felix was smoking and talking when the bridge-gatherers spotted a figure moving over the brae. The walker was a woman, most certainly, but who? And where could a stranger be heading when there was nowhere she could go that the men wouldn't have known about? Then she appeared. She was all colour and sway, and as far away as imaginable from the local women. Pale, pale skin and strong dark auburn hair falling free to large wide hips. She wore a purple shawl. That night, Felix, a bachelor, aged 43, living in the house he was born in, dreamt of purple.
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