Search results for ""Author Norah Hoult""

Originally published in 1950, Cocktail Bar is a brilliantly incisive collection of short stories, far ahead of its time, which illuminates the small, unspoken intricacies of human relationships. From an immigrant household in London preparing to organise a ‘proper Irish wedding’ to a domineering society matron running her upper-class neighbourhood with an iron fist; from a fashionable young woman wants to be charitable towards her old and poor aunt to an Irish girl must decide between a promising future in America and marriage to her long-time beau. Throughout these tales, Hoult reveals the contemporary realities of class and disability, office politics and women’s lives, with a sharp gaze and a gentle touch. Beautifully observed and remarkably crafted, exact and unflinching, Cocktail Bar is a modern Irish classic.

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Adam Palmer, determined to defy God in revenge for his detention in an asylum, embarks on a personal quest to destroy his soul, inflicting small sustained acts of cruelty and violence on those around him. His long-suffering wife, Kathleen, struggles to maintain her self-respect in the face of her husband’s gaslighting. Among the most elusive of Norah Hoult’s works, Farewell Happy Fields was published in 1948 and, like many of her books, was promptly banned in Ireland. A dark comedy full of acerbic wit, it brings searing insight into a lost post-war generation of lower-middle-class women and men as they deal with shame, financial insecurity and emotional poverty. Back in print for the first time in decades, New Island is delighted to bring this startling modern Irish classic to a new generation of readers.

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