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Greener Pastures: 8 Books for St. Patrick’s Day
Keep calm and leprechaun with the Irish literary boom's latest titles from writers like Ronan Bennett, Claire Coughlan and Tana French / BY Nathalie Atkinson / March 14th, 2024
Sally Rooney, the bestselling – and most sought-after – writer of literary fiction in the English-speaking world right now, just made headlines with the announcement that her new novel Intermezzo (about Dublin brothers grieving the death of their father) is slated for September. Rooney burst onto the scene in 2017, at age 25, with the one-two punch of Conversations with Friends and, the following year, Normal People. Irish novelist Paul Lynch’s 2023 Booker Prize win for Prophet Song, alongside three other Irish nominees – including Paul Murray for The Bee Sting – is arguably part of a ongoing boom among the country’s creatives. Claire Keegan’s powerful short fictions crack bestseller lists regularly. Her hit Small Things Like These is now a movie starring newly minted Academy Award winner Cillian Murphy, the first Irishman to win Best Actor.
Happily, for every prodigy there are late bloomers like Louise Kennedy, whose debut novel Trespasses won her acclaim at 55, in 2022, or Anna Burns, who at 56 became the first Northern Irish Booker winner in 2018 with the highly original Milkman.
Whether lyrical or experimental in nature, it’s perhaps less the “Sally Rooney effect” than a flourishing literary festival scene descended from groundbreaking modernist James Joyce, one that boasts such contemporary luminaries as Elaine Feeney, Sebastian Barry, Eimear McBride, Roddy Doyle, Nuala O’Connor, John Banville and Colm Tóibín. Anticipation is high for the May publication of Long Island, Tóibín’s sequel to his prize-winning, bestselling Brooklyn (the movie starred Saoirse Ronan), which picks up 20 years into’s Eilis’ marriage to Tony, as it is for Banville’s next novel The Drowned (October). In the meantime, these notable new reads in the Irish literary wave deserve a toast.
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1Jaq Before Northern Irish showrunner Ronan Bennett created the gritty Top Boy (the U.K.’s answer to The Wire, now on Netflix), a crime saga so riveting that Canadian superfan Drake helped save it from cancellation, he wrote prize-winning novels like The Catastrophist. He returns to fiction, drawing on his own experience of being Irish in London, to develop the story of Jaq, one of the most compelling characters in Top Boy, the hit TV series about a fictional East London housing-estate drug gang.
Before Northern Irish showrunner Ronan Bennett created the gritty Top Boy (the U.K.’s answer to The Wire, now on Netflix), a crime saga so riveting that Canadian superfan Drake helped save it from cancellation, he wrote prize-winning novels like The Catastrophist. He returns to fiction, drawing on his own experience of being Irish in London, to develop the story of Jaq, one of the most compelling characters in Top Boy, the hit TV series about a fictional East London housing-estate drug gang.
2Where They Lie Celebrated Irish author John Banville, who writes the popular Quirke crime series set in mid-century Ireland, praises journalist Coughlan’s 1968-set historical literary thriller. The murder mystery follows Nicoletta, an ambitious young reporter, as new evidence in a long-forgotten murder is uncovered; it’s related to an underground feminist abortion service, making the novel as much about Irish women’s long quest for reproductive autonomy as a whodunnit.
Celebrated Irish author John Banville, who writes the popular Quirke crime series set in mid-century Ireland, praises journalist Coughlan’s 1968-set historical literary thriller. The murder mystery follows Nicoletta, an ambitious young reporter, as new evidence in a long-forgotten murder is uncovered; it’s related to an underground feminist abortion service, making the novel as much about Irish women’s long quest for reproductive autonomy as a whodunnit.
3The Hunter Fans of the American-born Irish writer love the loosely connected mysteries of her superb and psychologically astute Dublin Murder Squad series. But in 2020, French ventured away from Dublin with The Searcher, to feature retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper, who moved to rural western Ireland for solace. In this sequel – ingeniously told largely through conversations – he continues to learn what makes his neighbours tick, as the absent father of Trey (Hooper’s teen protégé from the earlier novel) comes back to the village with an ulterior motive.
Fans of the American-born Irish writer love the loosely connected mysteries of her superb and psychologically astute Dublin Murder Squad series. But in 2020, French ventured away from Dublin with The Searcher, to feature retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper, who moved to rural western Ireland for solace. In this sequel – ingeniously told largely through conversations – he continues to learn what makes his neighbours tick, as the absent father of Trey (Hooper’s teen protégé from the earlier novel) comes back to the village with an ulterior motive.
4Ordinary Human Failings Characters who are victims of circumstance in 1990 London populate this London-based Irish journalist’s page-turner about the unsolved murder of a child. Inspired in part by the notorious 1993 James Bulger case (in which two teen boys killed a toddler for the fun of it), in her novel Nolan peels back the layers of class bias and assumption around the 10-year-old girl suspect as tabloids and investigators make her immigrant Irish family the scapegoat.
Characters who are victims of circumstance in 1990 London populate this London-based Irish journalist’s page-turner about the unsolved murder of a child. Inspired in part by the notorious 1993 James Bulger case (in which two teen boys killed a toddler for the fun of it), in her novel Nolan peels back the layers of class bias and assumption around the 10-year-old girl suspect as tabloids and investigators make her immigrant Irish family the scapegoat.
5Wild Houses The darkly comic first novel by Barrett, the widely acclaimed short story writer (born in Fort McMurray, but raised in County Mayo), was actually written in Toronto during pandemic lockdowns. It’s a crime caper set in a small town and probes honour among thieves in a family of eccentric gangsters. “There’s violence, but it’s about etiquette – it’s like a Jane Austen novel,” he told the Guardian.
The darkly comic first novel by Barrett, the widely acclaimed short story writer (born in Fort McMurray, but raised in County Mayo), was actually written in Toronto during pandemic lockdowns. It’s a crime caper set in a small town and probes honour among thieves in a family of eccentric gangsters. “There’s violence, but it’s about etiquette – it’s like a Jane Austen novel,” he told the Guardian.
6Missing Persons, Or My Grandmother’s Secrets The London-based Irish critic and cultural historian’s memoir goes on a journey to discover the ordinary people (including her own family members) who made Ireland’s heartbreaking system of incarcerating unmarried mothers and their babies possible. After finding a cousin she didn’t know about, and through researching a century of archives, Wills unearths unsettling involvement and complicity. (April 2)
The London-based Irish critic and cultural historian’s memoir goes on a journey to discover the ordinary people (including her own family members) who made Ireland’s heartbreaking system of incarcerating unmarried mothers and their babies possible. After finding a cousin she didn’t know about, and through researching a century of archives, Wills unearths unsettling involvement and complicity. (April 2)
7The Alternatives The publishers who vied for this “outstandingly witty and ambitious” novel praised its “originality and emotional acuity,” as well as its sparkling humour. It explores the bond between four sisters, orphaned in childhood, who are now in their 30s and working in fields dedicated to saving the planet’s future. As they struggle to reconnect, one of them abandons the successful life she has built for herself. (April 16)
The publishers who vied for this “outstandingly witty and ambitious” novel praised its “originality and emotional acuity,” as well as its sparkling humour. It explores the bond between four sisters, orphaned in childhood, who are now in their 30s and working in fields dedicated to saving the planet’s future. As they struggle to reconnect, one of them abandons the successful life she has built for herself. (April 16)
8After a Dance Shortly before her untimely death from cancer in 2010 at age 49, the playwright wrote the BAFTA-winning screenplay for the Gary Oldman-starring film adaptation of John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. This collection from O’Connor – one of the brightest short story writers of her generation – showcases her ear for dialogue, and taste for gallows humour. In the darkly funny “Love Jobs,” for instance, muggers take their would-be victim on a drinking binge after they accidentally kill the dog he’s walking. (April 16)
Shortly before her untimely death from cancer in 2010 at age 49, the playwright wrote the BAFTA-winning screenplay for the Gary Oldman-starring film adaptation of John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. This collection from O’Connor – one of the brightest short story writers of her generation – showcases her ear for dialogue, and taste for gallows humour. In the darkly funny “Love Jobs,” for instance, muggers take their would-be victim on a drinking binge after they accidentally kill the dog he’s walking. (April 16)