Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 424
New Irish Fiction
Disguise by Hugo Hamilton
Large Format Trade Paperback; 15 Euro / 22 USD / 11 UK; 262 pages
Hugo Hamilton, the internationally acclaimed author of 'The Speckled People' and 'Sailor in the Wardrobe', turns his hand back to fiction with a compelling drama tracing Berlin's central historical importance throughout the twentieth century. Boris Opp is a young Berliner, born into the chaos and commotion of the Second World War. But when his absent father returns from the Eastern front and remarks upon the absence of a birthmark above Boris' right eye, the child is suddenly thrown into an identity crisis that has him questioning the story of his birth. He begins to wonder, in part because of his Semitic features, whether he is in fact an orphaned Ukrainian Jew, stolen away by the occupying SS to be given up for adoption to a childless family back in Germany. It is this suspicion, so damaging and dangerous under the Nazi government, that proves to be the breakdown of his relationship with his violent and unforgiving father. As his paternal relationship disintegrates, Boris turns to his kindly uncle, a once dutiful World War 1 veteran whose terrifying ordeals on the Russian front made him swear an oath against Hitler.But his uncle is loose with the truth, and his careless whispers fan the flames of Boris' now frenzied suspicions.
These unanswered questions about his heritage and the obscured truth of his childhood continue to stalk him throughout his life -- through his later career as a professor of linguistics at the University of Berlin -- and onward to his death. It is only then, at the very end of his life, when the truth of his lineage can finally emerge. Part literary investigation, part historical novel, Disguise is an intelligent, poignant and brilliantly crafted story about a man's lifelong search for the truth of himself, and an allegory about the many disguises that the city of Berlin wore -- from the decadence of the Weimar Republic, through the oppression of fascism and communism -- throughout the most turbulent period in its fascinating history.
Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
Trade Paperback; 14 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 250 pages [Add To Basket]
In early 2006, Chuck Ramkissoon is found dead at the bottom of a New York canal. In London, a Dutch banker named Hans van den Broek hears the news, and remembers his unlikely friendship with Chuck and the off-kilter New York in which it flourished: the New York of 9/11, the powercut and the Iraq war. Those years were difficult for Hans - his English wife Rachel left with their son after the attack, as if that event revealed the cracks and silences in their marriage, and he spent two strange years in the Chelsea Hotel, passing stranger evenings with the eccentric residents. Lost in a country he'd regarded as his new home, Hans sought comfort in a most alien place - the thriving but almost invisible world of New York cricket, in which immigrants from Asia and the West Indies play a beautiful, mystifying game on the city's most marginal parks. It was during these games that Hans befriended Chuck Ramkissoon, who dreamed of establishing the city's first proper cricket field. Over the course of a summer, Hans grew to share Chuck's dream and Chuck's sense of American possibility - until he began to glimpse the darker meaning of his new friend's activities and ambitions...'
Netherland' is a novel of belonging and not belonging, and the uneasy state in between. It is a novel of a marriage foundering and recuperating, and of the shallows and depths of male friendship. With it, Joseph O'Neill has taken the anxieties and uncertainties of our new century and fashioned a work of extraordinary beauty and brilliance.
Boy & Man by Niall Williams
Large Format Trade Paperback; 14 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 296 pages
When a loved one disappears, you can never be sure whether they are alive or dead Jay once content with life in rural Ireland, left his childhood home and those who loved him to embark on the journey of his life in search of his father. Now Jay is fully grown and living in a mission hospital in Africa. Alone without his family or his roots, he has given up his quest. Back in Ireland, the man known as the master is recovering after a terrible accident. Sure that his missing grandson, the only person left of his family, is alive somewhere, he cannot rest untill he knows for sure. Both men are seeking, amid the human suffering they are surrounded by, to have their belief in life confirmed. And for both of them, its the kindness of strangers which brings comfort. From the travelling nun to the Polish builder, for the trusting truick driver to the released prisoner, it is these strangers who guide us on life's journey and who help bring the missing home to each other.
Memoirs of Captain Rock by Thomas Moore
Large Format Trade Paperback with Endflaps; 25 Euro / 34 USD / 17 UK; 328 pages [Add To Basket]
In July 1823, an English missionary leaves Dublin on the Limerick Coach. On the coach is a man wearing green spectacles and a flaxen wig, who, from his use of metaphors and abuse of the Government, he took to be a genuine Irishman. The missionary disembarks at Roscrea to visit a friend, a minister, in his new glebe-house. There, a few nights later, walking near a ruined abbey, he again encounters the peculiar man who had travelled with him from Dublin. This man now reveals himself to be Captain Rock, the leader of protest movement blamed in England for Irish unrest. The Captain gives the missionary a manuscript, which he asks him to read before endeavouring to convert the Irish. The manuscript, the Captain s memoirs, is a history of Ireland as a cycle of repression and rebellion that had its source in British policy. Here, the truly violent people are not the followers of Captain Rock, but the well-paid, often clerical agents and supporters of the aggressive, sectarian state: it is the Rulers, not the People of Ireland, who require to be instructed and converted.
Sanctuary by Ken Bruen
Trade Paperback; 13 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 200 pages
Two guards; one nun; one judge. When a letter containing a list of victims arrives in the post, PI Jack Taylor is sickened, but tells himself the list has nothing to do with him. He has enough to do just staying sane. His close friend Ridge is recovering from surgery, and alcohol's siren song is calling to him ever more insistently. A guard and then a judge die in mysterious circumstances. But it is not until a child is added to the list that Taylor determines to find the identity of the killer, and stop them at any cost. What he doesn't know is that his relationship with the killer is far closer than he thinks. And that it's about to become deeply personal. Spiked with dark humour, seasoned with acute insights about the perils of urbanisation, and fuelled by rage at man's inhumanity to man, this is crime-writing at its darkest and most original.
In Exile by Billy O’Callaghan
Paperback; 13 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 220 pages [Add To Basket]
"In Exile" offers stories of love, sorrow, hope and quiet desperation. From the tale of a body on a fishing trawler to the city dwelling island man, it offers powerful glimpses of modern Ireland. Written in an evocative style, the stories convey the emotions and feelings of real people as they deal with real circumstances.
Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death by Gyles Brandreth
Large Format Trade Paperback; 13 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 390 pages [Add To Basket]
‘I see murder in this unhappy hand!' When Mrs Robinson, palmist to the Prince of Wales, reads Oscar Wilde's palm she cannot know what she has predicted. Nor can Oscar know what he has set in motion when, that same evening, he proposes a game of 'Murder' in which each of his Sunday Supper Club guests must write down those whom they would like to kill. For the fourteen 'victims' begin to die mysteriously, one by one, and in the order in which their names were drawn from the bag! With growing horror, Wilde and his confidantes Robert Sherard and Arthur Conan Doyle, realise that one of their guests that evening must be the murderer. In a race against time, Wilde will need all his powers of deduction and knowledge of human behaviour before he himself -- the thirteenth name on the list -- becomes the killer's next victim
This Champagne Mojito is the Last Thing I Own by Ross O’Carroll-Kelly
Paperback; 9 Euro / 12 USD / 6 UK; 318 pages [Add To Basket]
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly thought he had it all: nice gaff, cool car, plenty of dosh, a stake in Dublin's trendiest nightclub and a face that made boyfriends jealous. To say nothing of a beautiful wife and kids...All that remained was for him to totally fock it up: and I mean, totally...But did he see it coming? Of course not - too busy using his killer lines on the Seoige sisters: and then it hit me, all at once, on a lonely night in the Ice Bar...
The Book Club by Kate McCabe
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 440 pages [Add To Basket]
Marion Hunt is a 29-year-old single civil servant who has just bought a brand-new apartment is Dublin s Smithfield and needs something to while away the long cold winter nights. So she decides to start a book club. She quickly gathers around her a group of disparate individuals. There is Nick Barry, a young writer who has been mauled by the media but is determined to produce a critically-acclaimed novel. There is Liz Broderick a young widow of 33 whose husband Tim has been killed in a tragic road accident and whose friends are telling her she has to get out and meet new people. There is Robbie Gray a 45-year-old accountant whose wife has just left him for another man after 16 years of marriage. There is Christy Grimes a pensioner from Phibsboro and his wife Ellie who is recovering from a stroke but is determined to recover. And then there is Alan McMillan, a successful lawyer and an old boyfriend of Marion's who will stop at nothing to get her back. As the book club gets under way, strange things begin to happen...
My Husband’s Lover by Erin Kaye
Large Format Trade Paperback; 15 Euro / 22 USD / 11 UK; 460 pages [Add To Basket]
When Chris Quinn's old school friend Bernie Sweeney turns up on her doorstep all the way from sunny Australia, she welcomes her into her home with open arms. But, before she knows what's happened, Bernie has stolen her doctor husband, Paul, and Chris well ordered life crumbles beneath her feet. Is she strong enough to face up to the fact that her marriage to Paul was a sham? And can she rebuild a life for herself without him? Paul Quinn thinks he's found the love of his life in Bernie and is all set for a new start. But Bernie is about to uncover a terrible secret about herself that tears them apart. Will they find a way to overcome the obstacle placed in their path or are their hearts destined to be broken? Chris's sister, Karen, hides her cripplingly low self-esteem behind a vivacious, outgoing personality. Convinced that her husband is having an affair because she's let her body go, Karen resorts to shocking and drastic measures to win him back. But will she find the happiness and peace of mind that have evaded her for so long? Karen's husband Tony, oblivious to his wife's paranoia, has never looked at another woman since he met Karen. Happily married with two beautiful kids his life is complete. Until, that is, Shona Johnston appears on the scene and painful wounds from the past are reopened. Tony thought he had atoned for the sins of his youth, but now he has to come clean about his shame or face losing Karen. Sometimes the truth is hard to face. Sometimes it s not what we want to hear. But we all have to face it sooner or later.
With My Lazy Eye by Julia Kelly
Paperback; 9 Euro / 12 USD / 6 UK; 250 pages [Add To Basket]
"With My Lazy Eye" is the story of Lucy. Lucy's a misfit. She's growing up in a large family in a semi-detached house, dreaming of being someone else and making her father proud. It's not looking promising. He's an internationally renowned academic and her siblings are bright achievers, but Lucy is lazy, directionless and never quite manages to succeed. Perhaps that's because she's not really trying. She hasn't got the energy to revise for exams, she can't convince herself to care about coming last and even when she goes to London and finds the perfect job, she is still destined to fail. And as far as men are concerned, Lucy tumbles into bed with one after another, never finding any she can find real affection for. It seems she's going nowhere - fast. Finally, Lucy is going to grow up and choose her own life, but when a family crisis looms, it might just be too late. Winner of the 2008 Newcomer of the Year Award at the Irish Book Awards.
Two Days in Biarritz by Michelle Jackson
Paperback; 9 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 456 pages [Add To Basket]
They're chalk and cheese but always the best of friends . . . until Biarritz! Meet best friends Kate and Annabel, all set to celebrate a big birthday in style. And where better to do it than the chic resort of Biarritz packed with yummy food, heady wine and surfers? Kate is an artist and lives in France, while Annabel's only ambition is to hang on to her Yummy Mummy status back in Dublin. But Annabel has been keeping a shocking secret from Kate for years. Then in Biarritz, in a haze of alcohol, she at last lets it slip. Kate is devastated and runs back home to the Pyrénées. Then her mother's illness forces her to return to Dublin . . . to Shane, a pilot, the one-time love of her life . . . and to Annabel. Meanwhile Annabel's perfect suburban life is rocked and she throws herself into setting up a small business. Her husband Colin is appalled at the new Annabel . . . new friend Gary, however, approves . . . Can the women's friendship survive deception, betrayal and anger? Can they survive Biarritz?
Lessons in Heartbreak by Cathy Kelly
Trade Paperback; 9 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 450 pages [Add To Basket]
Three Lives. Three Loves. Three Reasons to Let Go - the compelling new novel from the international No.1 bestselling author Izzie Silver left the small Irish town of Tamarin behind for New York. Life is good - until she breaks her own rules and falls for a married man. On the other side of the ocean, Izzie's aunt Anneliese discovers the pain of infidelity for herself. Then Lily, the wise and compassionate family matriarch, is taken ill. At her bedside back in Ireland, Izzie discovers a past her grandmother has never spoken of, while Anneliese feels despair mount. The one person she could have turned to is starting to slip away. The lessons each of the women learns - both past and present - bring joy and heartbreak. And the hardest lesson of all is learning to let go.
I Saw You by Julie Parsons
Paperback; 9 Euro / 12 USD / 6 UK; 354 pages [Add To Basket]
For ten years, newly retired Policeman Michael McLoughlin has been haunted by the case of a young woman brutally murdered and the affection he felt for the victim's mother, Margaret. A favour for a friend leads him to another woman who has lost a child her daughter has been found drowned in the same lake her stepfather died in years earlier. Was it an accident, suicide or murder? Margaret thought she could escape her past but the memories of her daughter and of her killer - give her no peace and she finally returns to Dublin to face her demons. A chance encounter with a young girl in a graveyard leads her to back to a man she never thought she'd see again and a mother with a grief to match her own. This is a chilling and dark novel of love, revenge and atonement from the author of "Mary", "The Courtship Gift", and "The Hourglass."
Dun an Airgid by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne
Trade Paperback with Endflaps; 16 Euro / 22 USD / 11 UK; 268 pages [Add To Basket]
Is aoibhinn an ait e Dun an Airgid - baile nua foirfe agus daoine deasa lonnaithe ann. Utoipe nua-aoiseach. Ach la amhain teann an leabharlannai Laoise Ni Bhroin ar iarraidh. An bhfuil dunmharfoir srathach i gceist? Ceard a bhi faoi cheilt ag Laoise? Nochtann Eilis Ni Dhuibhne ealain agus rachmas sa chulra - agus an nathair nimhe i bhfolach i bParthas. Ce a rinne e? Ach ta caidreamh an Gharda lena chailin Saoirse i gceist freisin agus saol comhaimseartha na hEireann ag bruith anseo.
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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