Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 464
21/22 November 2009
Irish Fiction, Literature & Poetry
Collected Stories of William Trevor
2-Volume Boxed Set; 75 Euro / 100 USD / 60 UK
Viking Penguin has just released a deluxe box set gift edition of William Trevor's Collected Stories. His previous combined collected stories was published in 1992 to great acclaim. Since then he has published four new collections: After Rain, The Hill Bachelors, A Bit on the Side and Cheating at Canasta. The stories from these later collections have now been added to those in the 1992 book, to make two highly collectable volumes containing the complete shorter fiction of 'the greatest living writer of short stories' (John Banville). A limited number of this gift set available.
Love and Summer by William Trevor
Large Format Paperback; 14 Euro / 18 USD / 10 UK; 211 pages [Add To Basket]
It’s summer and nothing much is happening in Rathmoye. So it doesn’t go unnoticed when a dark-haired stranger appears on his bicycle and begins photographing the mourners at Mrs Connulty’s funeral. Florian Kilderry couldn't know that the Connultys were said to own half the town; and, in any case, he had come to Rathmoye only to see the scorched remains of the cinema. But Mrs Connulty's daughter, liberated at last by the death of her imperious mother, resolves to keep an eye on Florian Kilderry, and it's she who comes to witness the events that follow. A few miles out in the country a farmer called Dillahan lives with the knowledge that he was accidentally responsible for the deaths of his wife and baby. He has married again: Ellie is the young convent girl who came to work for him when he was widowed. But she falls in love with Florian and though he plans to leave Ireland, a dangerously reckless attachment develops between them . In a characteristically masterly way Trevor evokes the passions and frustrations felt by Ellie and Florian, and by the people of a small Irish town during one long summer.
William Trevor was born in Michelstown, County Cork. He has written many novels, and has won many prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. He is a celebrated short-story writer whose two most recent collections are The Hill Bachelors (2000), which won the Macmillan Silver Pen Award and the Irish Times Literature Prize, and A Bit on the Side (2004). Both are available in Penguin, as are his Collected Stories. In 1999 William Trevor received the prestigious David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetimeÂ’s literary achievement, and in 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. He now lives in Devon. (Also available in Hardback, priced at 22 Euro)
Irish Literature Since 1990 by Scott Brewster and Michael Palmer
Hardback; 70 Euro / 100 USD / 50 UK; 330 pages
Irish Literature since 1990: "Diverse Voices" is a distinctive book that examines the diversity and energy of writing in a period marked by the unparalleled global prominence of Irish culture. This collection provides a wide-ranging survey of fiction, poetry and drama over the last two decades, considering both well-established figures and also emerging writers who have received relatively little critical attention before.Contributors explore the central developments within Irish culture and society that have transformed the writing and reading of identity, sexuality, history and gender. The book examines the impact of Mary Robinson's Presidency; growing cultural confidence 'back home'; legislative reform on sexual and moral issues; the uneven effects generated by the resurgence of the Irish economy (the 'Celtic Tiger' myth); Ireland's increasingly prominent role in Europe; and changing reputation. In its breadth and critical currency, this book will be of particular to academics and students working in the fields of literature, drama and cultural studies.
Walter Macken: Dreams on Paper by Ultan Macken
Hardback; 30 Euro / 40 USD / 25 UK; 450 pages, with an 8-page black-and-white photo insert [Add To Basket]
This is a personal biography of one of Ireland's finest writers. This new biography sheds light on the private life of one of Ireland's foremost writers, through his many unpublished and privately held papers and letters. Walter Macken was born in Galway in 1915 and died there in 1967. Originally an actor, principally with the Taidhbhearc in Galway and The Abbey Theatre, he played lead roles on Broadway and also acted in films, notably in Brendan Behan's "The Quare Fellow". With the success of his third book, "Rain on the Wind", he became a full-time writer. His novels include "Rain on the Wind" and "The Bogman", but he is probably best know for his trilogy "Seek the Fair Land", "The Silent People" and "The Scorching Wind". He also published a number of books for children. Known for his romanticised portrayal of the Irish and the portrait he painted of the colonial oppression of the people, Macken's writings were a product of a more nationalistic time.
Set in Stone by Catherine Dunne
Large Format Paperback; 14 Euro / 19 USD / 10 UK; 286 pages [Add To Basket]
This is a compelling and intriguing novel of obsession and deception set to shake the foundations of family relationships. Mosaic artist Linda Graham has, up until now, been fortunate in life. She is happily married, with two wonderful children, Ciaran and Katie, and a beautiful home with a dream garden just outside Dublin. Her world is safe and uncomplicated, and it's one she has always taken for granted. That is until Jon, a friend of Ciaran's from University, inveigles his way into their lives. There's something about Jon which Linda finds unnerving - he seems almost too perfect. Her suspicions are confirmed when it becomes apparent that he is responsible for a spiral of events which contribute to the gradual disintegration of her family. When Jon leaves, his disappearance is even more destructive than his presence. Linda's quest to track him down reveals surprising and sinister information about his past and the reason for his existence in their lives. Linda knows that Jon is out there somewhere - watching, waiting, malevolent. And she also knows that she must do whatever it takes to protect the most precious thing she has left - her family.
Old Swords and other stories by Desmond Hogan
Hardback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 136 pages [Add To Basket]
These ten stories by Desmond Hogan, his first publication since "Larks' Eggs, New and Selected Stories" (2005), collect newly minted shards of experience focused in the lives of the dreamers and the marginalized who populate his imagined worlds. They range in time and place from France and Italy in the nineteenth century to Ireland of the mid-twentieth century. Their concerns are fragility and identity expressed through the outer semblances of dress and deportment, and inner realities of fragmented memory and the retrieval of shared pasts. Close observation of nature combines with psychological unveilings, much of it in the form of erotic reverie. 'Belle', Iowa', 'Red Tide', 'Little Friends', 'Shelter', 'Sweet Marjoram', 'The Hare's Purse', 'The House of Mourning', 'Essex Slipper', 'Old Swords'; two of the stories have been selected for extract in both "The Stinging Fly" and "Cyphers".This unique and occasional voice is unique to Irish letters, as each new gathering enlarges upon his reputation as one of Ireland's most fearless and innovative writers, who in the words of film-maker Neil Jordan, 'remakes the world every time he puts pen to paper'.
The Big Chapel by Thomas Kilroy
Hardback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 11 UK; 250 pages [Add To Basket]
The Big Chapel is one of the great Irish novels. Part of the Liberties Revival series, this novel depicts life in Ireland ensconced in clerical power, and which still resonates with life in Ireland today. Basing his work upon a notorious clerical scandal of Victorian Ireland, Thomas Kilroy has written an anatomy of religious violence that remains relevant. In scenes that range from the private and lyrical to the panorama of a whole community in convulsion he draws upon a deep knowledge of the history and folklore of nineteenth-century Ireland. While there is a great deal of humour in The Big Chapel, it is a work of grave tragic proportions. It is the characters however that remain longest in the memory. Father Lannigan, the anguished demagogue, the man haunted by the implications of his own revolution. Emerine Scully, a man unable to choose, at a time when all men are faced by choice, and Horace Percy Butler, landlord and amateur scientist, a comic, tragic character who is quite unlike anyone else in Irish fiction. Extracts from Butler's journal, in itself a remarkable tour de force, punctuate the novel.
Girl on a Bicycle by Leland Bardwell
Paperbackk; 13 Euro / 18 USD / 10 UK;
Large Format Paperback with 8 page full colour photo insert; 12 Euro / 16 USD / 10 UK; 300 pages [Add To Basket]
Julie De Vraie is young, impressionable and passionate. However, she lives at a most passionless time. Against the backdrop of the 'Emergency' at home, the chaos in Europe, the Catholic state and her own Protestant up-bringing she searches for freedom. To be free was to be an outcast, and as such, she becomes imprisoned in a deep chaos of her own. Girl on a Bicycle is Leland Bardwell's first novel and it introduced several of the themes that continue to resurface in Bardwell's subsequent writing. Dislocation, anti-authoritarian tendencies, sexual curiosity tempered by the stringencies of the day, and the confusion and castigation of the 'misfit' all merge in this coming-of-age novel. This book also serves to illuminate a society that is coming of age and is pushing against its own boundaries of independence, religion and new found nation identity in a Europe torn apart by war. Booker prize-nominated author, Anthony Burgess has described it as 'a literary gem'.
The Dove of Death by Peter Tremayne
Hardback; 25 Euro / 32 USD / 18 UK; 384 pages [Add To Basket]
The gripping new novel in the internationally renowned Sister Fidelma crime series by Peter Tremayne. AD 670. An Irish merchant ship is attacked by a pirate vessel off the coast of the Breton peninsular. Murchad, the captain, and a prince from the kingdom of Muman, are killed in cold blood after they have surrendered. Among the other passengers who manage to escape the slaughter are Sister Fidelma of Cashel and her faithful companion, Brother Eadulf. The prince was Fidelma's cousin and she is determined to bring the killers to justice...
The Twelve by Stuart Neville
Large Format Paperback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 11 UK; 325 pages [Add To Basket]
Sooner or later, everybody pays - and the dead will set the price ...Former paramilitary killer Gerry Fegan is haunted by his victims, twelve souls who shadow his every waking day and scream through every drunken night. Just as he reaches the edge of sanity they reveal their desire: vengeance on those who engineered their deaths. From the greedy politicians to the corrupt security forces, the street thugs to the complacent bystanders who let it happen, all must pay the price. When Fegan's vendetta threatens to derail Northern Ireland's peace process and destabilise its fledgling government, old comrades, and enemies alike want him gone. David Campbell, a double agent lost between the forces of law and terror, takes the job. But he has his own reasons for eliminating Fegan; the secrets of a dirty war should stay buried, even if its ghosts do not. Set against the backdrop of a post-conflict Northern Ireland struggling with its past, "The Twelve" takes the reader from the back streets of the city, where violence and politics go hand-in-hand, to the country's darkest heart. Stuart Neville's gripping thriller marks the emergence of a brilliant new voice.
Spindrift by Vona Groarke
Large Format Paperback; 12 Euro / 18 USD / 9 UK; 75 pages [Add To Basket]
Vona Groarke's fifth collection slips between the 'away' of America or England, and the West of Ireland or the remembered 'inland fields' of home. The poems offer gorgeous bits and pieces of the observed world: the sound a scissors makes; a drop of rain on a blouse; the flare-up of a mobile phone . . . Each pinpoints more expansive concerns where the intensely noticed detail blooms in significance. True to the Times Literary Supplement's note of her 'precise observation and deftly interwoven threads of thought', this book culminates in a title sequence that glimpses a Connemara landscape, attending to its wildflowers and rituals, its weather and tides, concluding that 'it is all a kind / of love song, really'. Love songs and poems of desire, poems of adherence and of doubt, Spindrift affirms the achievement of a poet identified by Poetry Ireland Review as 'Among the best Irish poets writing today'. (Also available in Hardback, priced at 18.50 Euro)
Dublin’s Other Poetry: Rhymes and Songs of the City edited by John Wyse Jackson & Hector McDonnell
Large Format Paperback; 12 Euro / 18 USD / 9 UK; 145 pages [Add To Basket]
Dublin's writers rarely remain solemn for long: their wicked sense of humour has travelled the world. This is an irresistible new anthology of what used to be called 'comic and curious verse' about the city, written by some of her most entertaining poets and songwriters. Fashions in verse come and go. Too often we forget - paradoxically - the most memorable works of wit, sarcasm or absurdity. The ones gathered here were written over four centuries, and were inspired by many things - among them love, injustice, history, politics, animals and alcohol, but most of all by the citizens of Dublin themselves. Whether the lines are satirical, sentimental, subversive, sexy or just plain silly, you will find that many of them show a rare seriousness as well. Each poem comes with background information about where it originated, and each page is illuminated by Hector McDonnell's wonderful, witty drawings.
Literary & Cultural Relations: Ireland, Hungary and Central and Eastern Europe edited by Mari Kurdi
Large Format Paperback; 20 Euro / 28 USD / 16 UK; 263 pages [Add To Basket]
This lively, informative and incisive collection of essays sheds fascinating new light on the literary interrelations between Ireland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Czech Republic. It charts a hitherto under-explored history of the reception of modern Irish culture in Central and Eastern Europe and also investigates how key authors have been translated, performed and adapted. The work of Jonathan Swift, John Millington Synge, Flann O'Brien, Samuel Beckett, Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, and Martin McDonagh, it is indicated, has particularly inspired writers, directors and translators.
The Gates by John Connolly
Small Format Hardback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 264 pages [Add To Basket]
A strange novel for strange young people. Young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund Boswell are trying to show initiative by trick-or-treating a full three days before Hallowe'en. Which is how they come to witness strange goings-on at 666 Crowley Avenue. The Abernathys don't mean any harm by their flirtation with Satanism. But it just happens to coincide with a malfunction in the Large Hadron Collider that creates a gap in the universe. A gap in which there is a pair of enormous gates. The gates to Hell. An there are some pretty terrifying beings just itching to get out . . . Can Samuel persuade anyone to take this seriously? Can he harness the power of science to save the world as we know it?
'Brilliant. I loved every word of it. John has found a voice that compares favourably with Stephen King and Monty Python which is not an easy trick. The Gates is delightfully horrific and hilarious and will create legions of fans among the living and undead, who will be bloodthirsty for more.' (Eoin Colfer )
The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern
Hardback; 14 Euro / 19 USD / 10 UK; [Add To Basket]
The magical new novel from number one bestseller Cecelia Ahern. Tamara’s childhood. With her mother shut away with grief, and her aunt busy tending to her, Tamara is lonely and bored and longs to return to Dublin. When a travelling library passes through Kilsaney Demesne, Tamara is intrigued. She needs a distraction. Her eyes rest on a mysterious large leather bound tome locked with a gold clasp and padlock. With some help, Tamara finally manages to open the book. What she discovers within the pages takes her breath away and shakes her world to its core. Told in Cecelia’s imitable style, The Girl of Tomorrow is a mesmerising and magical story for this autumn. (Also available as Unabridged Audio CD read by Ali Coffey, priced at 18 Euro)
Heart & Soul by Maeve Binchy
Paperback; 9 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 544 pages [Add To Basket]
Clara Casey has more than enough on her plate. Her daughters Adi and Linda were no problem at all during the usually turbulent teens. Now in their twenties, Adi is always fighting for or against something: the environment or the whale or battery farming; while Linda lurches from one unsatisfactory relationship to the next. As if this wasn't enough, Clara, a senior cardiac specialist, has a new job to cope with... For Ania, meeting Clara Casey is a miracle: she had never intended to leave her beloved Poland, but after the love of her life has turned sour, her world seems rather empty. Perhaps a new job in a new country will mend her broken heart? Declan is looking forward to joining the clinic - but what should have been a straightforward six-month posting brings him far more than he expected. Then there's Father Brian Flynn, whose life is turned upside down when his reputation is threatened; and the beautiful, cheerful nurse, Fiona, who can't leave her troubled past behind . . .
Between the Sheets by Colette Caddle
Paperback; 9 Euro / 13 USD / 7 UK; 480 pages [Add To Basket]
Dana De Lacey, bestselling romance novelist, has the world at her feet. The words on the page flow easily; an exciting new book deal beckons, and life at home in Dublin is good. But Dana's self-confidence and success depend on one person: her gorgeous husband, Gus. Without him, she has no fall-back. No children, no close family of her own to call upon. When Gus leaves her, she is devastated. The words fail to come. The alcohol flows too freely. She cannot sleep. Then her estranged brother, Ed, arrives to take care of her out of the blue, and memories which she has buried for many years begin to surface: startling recollections of a childhood and a little girl long-forgotten, which inspire Dana at last to write from the heart. Which Dana was it that Gus walked out on -- the glamorous party girl, whose romantic novels always have a happy ending? Or someone with a different name, whose life tells a very different story? Forced to face up to the past, can she find the real Dana, recover her career, and try to make Gus love her for the person she really is?
Beyond Sin by Emma Jordan
Paperback; 8 Euro / 12 USD / 6 UK; 380 pages [Add To Basket]
The picture-perfect O'Neill family is both admired and envied, near and far. But in the week leading up to Andrea O'Neill's high-profile society wedding, life-changing trouble is suddenly brewing and sinister cracks begin to show in the previously solid foundations of the O'Neill household. When the bride s angelic sister Jessie disappears from the wedding reception and is still not found days later, the finger of blame switches from person to person as the hours before her vanishing are scrambled together in a jigsaw full of missing pieces. Could Jessie have been living a double life, unknown to those who love her? And could anyone hate her so much that they would make her suffer the ultimate punishment for her dreadful secret sin?
Forever Friends by Kate McCabe
Paperback; 9 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 440 pages [Add To Basket]
Maddy, Rosie and Sophie, friends since their Dublin schooldays, meet in the Pink Parrot to discuss hair styles, clothes, work and of course boyfriends. They commiserate with each other. They celebrate together, clinking glasses and toasting themselves: 'Forever friends!' As Maddy battles to gain recognition in the male-dominated property business, she takes her own first tentative but exciting step on the property ladder. She thrives on the cut and thrust of the property boom she loves her house, her family and her friends. Life is good. All that is missing is a man to share it all with. Enter the gorgeous Greg Delaney! Dream on, Rosie and Sophie! Talk in the Pink Parrot turns from boyfriends to wedding plans. But as the years roll by, will they still at their joint fiftieth birthday celebration be able to raise their glasses and toast to 'Forever friends! May nothing ever come between us!'?
If Not Now by Denise Devlin
Paperback; 8 Euro / 12 USD / 6 UK; 448 pages [Add To Basket]
Just when she has resigned herself to being alone long-term, Marina Ffrench, a widow in her forties, meets a man and falls in love all over again. A mid-life relationship, she thinks, will be straightforward — kids reared, careers established, mortgages almost paid off . . . However, mid-life passion carries excess baggage. Luke, her man, may have a gorgeous villa on the Italian Lakes, but he also has a pious and eccentric Irish mammy, an Italian ex-lover who is as invasive as dry rot, and a son embroiled in a suspect engagement. And Marina has to admit that her own life is just as complicated — and getting more so by the day, given the number of stray souls and ghosts from the past that are turning up in her Cork home. Gradually, she and Luke come to see that love second time around is hard work. But in their efforts to find a happy ending for everyone, unwittingly they are creating a disaster that may destroy their shared future and the happiness of both families . . .
Missing You Already by Pauline McLynn
Paperback; 8 Euro / 12 USD / 6 UK; 384 pages [Add To Basket]
At a remote railway station in Norfolk, Kitty Fulton runs the ticket office and her pet project is the lost and found. Nothing gives her more pleasure than to reunite possessions with their rightful owners. It is an experience that remains elusive in her own world as her mother’s Alzheimer’s pulls them further and further apart and, on top of this, she must endure the disintegration of a close relationship with a childhood friend. Just when Kitty feels her life can’t get more complicated a series of extraordinary events challenges her notions of duty and fidelity. And in struggling to find the answers Kitty embarks on a journey that questions the importance of life and the way we must all live...
Perfect Man by Sheila O’Flanagan
Large Format Paperback; 14 Euro / 19 USD / 10 UK; 440 pages [Add To Basket]
From a bestselling brand author comes a captivating novel about family ties, romance and leaving the past behind
Two very different sisters, Mia (still in love with Alejo, the married father of her daughter) and Britt (the ice maiden, who has ironically written a romantic bestseller), join a luxury honeymoon cruise in the Caribbean where Britt is the guest lecturer. Also on board are recently widowed Leo, still reeling from the discovery of his wife's betrayal just before her death, and Steve, a ship's officer who's soon looking for more than a holiday romance with Mia. Can Steve replace Alejo and is there any chance that Britt and Leo can see that they really should get together? When the characters head for home - Mia to Spain, the others to Dublin - it seems that all romantic options are off, especially as Leo rashly got engaged to glamorous, man-eating Pippin while at sea. But love has a way of triumphing in Sheila O'Flanagan's novels, even if it takes till the very last page...
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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