Search results for ""author colin barrett""

‘A mesmerisingly powerful book’ SALLY ROONEYIlluminating the lives of outcasts, misfits and malcontents, this is the darkly funny and moving second book from the award-winning author of Young Skins.A quiet night in the neighbourhood pub is shattered by the arrival of a sword-wielding fugitive. A funeral party teeters on the edge of this world and the next, as ghosts won't settle. A shooting sees an everyday call-out lead a policewoman to confront the banality of her own existence.In his new collection of stories, Colin Barrett takes us to the barren backwaters of County Mayo, via Canada – always with an eye for the abrupt and absurd.'Superb... There is so much life in these pages' DOUGLAS STUART'Fierce, tender...unforgettable' BRANDON TAYLOR'Addictive, stylish and violently funny... Outstanding' KEVIN BARRY

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WINNER OF THE 2014 GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD'One of the best books of the past decade... The characters are edgy, often violent, locked into a world described in ways that are both harsh and tender. . . Adds a sense of myth, even a spiritual aura, to the narrative that lifts the meanness of the circumstances into some other realm' Colm Tóibín, Washington Post *Winner of the 2014 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award*Winner of the 2014 Rooney Prize for Irish LiteratureThis magnificent collection takes us to Glanbeigh, a small town in rural Ireland - a town in which the youth have the run of the place. Boy racers speed down the back lanes; couples haunt the midnight woods; young skins huddle in the cold once The Peacock has closed its doors. Here the young live hard and wear the scars. It matters whose sister you were seen with. If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, it matters a very great deal.Colin Barrett's debut does not take us to Glanbeigh alone; there are other towns, and older characters. But each story is defined by a youth lived in a crucible of menace and desire - and each crackles with the uniform energy and force that distinguish this terrific collection.

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**One of the Observer's Debut Novels of 2024**A small-town feud. A madcap kidnapping. A wild weekend to change everybody’s lives...‘Sublime… [Wild Houses is] a thrillingly moreish novel… and held me captive until the very last page’ Sunday Times'Strange and beautiful... A book to live inside' SALLY ROONEY, author of Normal People'A gift of true storytelling... Barrett's talent burns up the page' ANNE ENRIGHT, author of The Wren, The WrenAs Ballina prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, the simmering feud between small-time drug-dealer, Cillian English, and County Mayo's enforcers, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, spills over into violence and an ugly ultimatum.When the reclusive Dev answers his door on Friday night he finds Doll - Cillian's teenage brother - in the clutches of Gabe and Sketch. Jostled by his nefarious cousins and goaded by his dead mother's dog, Dev is drawn headlong into the Ferdias' revenge fantasy.Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Nicky can't shake the feeling something bad has happened to her boyfriend Doll. Hungover, reeling from a fractious Friday night and plagued by ghosts of her own, Nicky sets out on a feverish mission to save Doll, even as she questions her future in Ballina.‘This nastily slow-burn chiller is shaping up to be one of the novels of the year’ Daily Mail, **Books to Look Out For 2024**

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**One of the Observer's Debut Novels of 2024**A small-town feud. A madcap kidnapping. A wild weekend to change everybody’s lives...‘Sublime… [Wild Houses is] a thrillingly moreish novel… and held me captive until the very last page’ Sunday Times'Strange and beautiful... A book to live inside' SALLY ROONEY, author of Normal People'A gift of true storytelling... Barrett's talent burns up the page' ANNE ENRIGHT, author of The Wren, The WrenAs Ballina prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, the simmering feud between small-time drug-dealer, Cillian English, and County Mayo's enforcers, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, spills over into violence and an ugly ultimatum.When the reclusive Dev answers his door on Friday night he finds Doll - Cillian's teenage brother - in the clutches of Gabe and Sketch. Jostled by his nefarious cousins and goaded by his dead mother's dog, Dev is drawn headlong into the Ferdias' revenge fantasy.Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Nicky can't shake the feeling something bad has happened to her boyfriend Doll. Hungover, reeling from a fractious Friday night and plagued by ghosts of her own, Nicky sets out on a feverish mission to save Doll, even as she questions her future in Ballina.‘This nastily slow-burn chiller is shaping up to be one of the novels of the year’ Daily Mail, **Books to Look Out For 2024**

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