Recent Irish Fiction: 2023

"A novel examining the long, complicit aftermath of colonialism, told through the summer of 1979 and a remote island in the west of Ireland, one of the last places where people speak everyday Irish, and two men who come to experience it"-- It is the summer of 1979. An English painter travels to a small island off the west coast of Ireland. Mr. Lloyd takes the last leg by currach, though boats with engines are available and he doesn't much like the...

The narrator's erotic obsession with a woman who wields a dominant sexual and psychological power over him draws him into a headlong plunge toward tragedy for his family and his own self-destruction.

"It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas' house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom. But there is something unspoken in this new household-where everything is so well tended to-and this summer must soon come to an end. Winner of the prestigious Davy Byrnes...

"In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks--young Trian and old Cormac--he rows down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. In such a place, what will survival mean?"--

"When Colin Barrett's debut Young Skins was published, it swept up several major literary awards, and, in both its linguistic originality and sharply drawn portraits of working-class Ireland, earned Barrett comparisons to Faulkner, Hardy, and Musil. Now, in a blistering follow-up collection, Barrett brings together eight character-driven stories, each showcasing his inimitably observant eye and darkly funny style. A quiet night in a local pub is shattered...

"In the dead of night, shots ring out over the grounds of a sprawling English estate. The world-weary butler Eustace recognizes the gunman-his longtime employer, Mr. Crowe-and knows he must think and act quickly. Who is the man lying dead on the lawn? Who is the woman in his company? Can he clean up his master's mess like he always has before? Or will this bring a new kind of reckoning? Mr. Crowe was once famed for his gifts-unaccountable gifts, known...

"September 1943: German forces occupy Rome. Gestapo boss Obersturmbannf�uhrer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror. Hunger is widespread. Rumors fester. The war's outcome is far from certain. Diplomats, refugees, and escaped Allied prisoners flee for protection into Vatican City, at one fifth of a square mile the world's smallest state, a neutral, independent country within Rome. A small band of unlikely friends led by a courageous Irish priest is...

"A verse epic for the 21st century, Poguemahone combines the fragmentation of cummings and Williams and the spontaneity of Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti with a soundtrack by Mott the Hoople, then douses it in whisky and sets it on fire. Ancient as myth and wholly original, Poguemahone is a masterpiece of formal invention with the rollicking clip of a drinking song and the devastating story of one familys history and the forces, seen and unseen, that make...

"Feeling her stardom fading, struggling soap-actress Adele Rafferty is ready to give up on her dreams when she gets a last-minute offer to play the lead in upcoming horror film Final Draft. Could this be her big break? Will she have redemption for what happened the last time she was on a film set? Adele doesn't think twice before signing the dotted line. Adele quickly makes her way to set, deep into the isolated and wintry woods of West Cork, Ireland,...

"Amid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast. By day she teaches at a parochial school; at night she fills in at her family’s pub. There she meets Michael Agnew, a barrister who’s made a name for himself defending IRA members. Against her better judgment – Michael is not only Protestant but older, and married – Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and...