Colin Barrett grew up in County Mayo, Ireland. His stories have been published in the Stinging Fly, Granta, Harper's and the New Yorker. His first book, the short story collection Young Skins, won the Guardian First Book Award, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. His second collection, Homesickness, made the New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year and was a Book of the Year in Oprah Daily and the Irish Times.
This strange and beautiful novel brings to life an entire world. Wild Houses is a book not just to read but to live inside -- Sally Rooney Vivid, controlled, very funny, and very moving - Barrett has the kind of pure writing chops that are vanishingly rare -- Kevin Barry Wild Houses is swift, tender, and honest. It's been a long time since I've been so worried, so heartbroken, so moved by a set of funny misfits. Barrett is one of our keenest observers of the miraculous amid the everyday and of the uncommon beauty of common things, the power of attention. When I finished this novel, I desperately wanted to call Dev, Doll, or Nicky, just to see if they were okay, to see if everything had turned out alright. A brilliant novel. -- Brandon Taylor Vivid and wild, funny and chilling - Wild Houses is the business -- Roddy Doyle, author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha Wild Houses has a rare momentum that comes from the rhythms of the sentences, the vivid descriptions and the brilliantly chosen details. The momentum emerges also from the depth and complexity of the main characters and the wide sweep of the narrative. In a small town in the west of Ireland over a few days, a whole world, memorable and edgy, is captured for the reader -- Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn Wild Houses is a taut, brooding thunderstorm of a novel. -- Rónán Hession, author of Leonard and Hungry Paul Colin Barrett proved with his short stories that he's not only one of the most stylistically gifted writers working now, but also one of the most generous. His first novel, Wild Houses, is deft, intricate, unique - restorative in its refusal to be anything but itself. Colin Barrett is a talent of the rarest kind -- Nicole Flattery Colin Barrett's long-awaited début novel… [is] by turns raucously funny, tense and deeply affecting, it has been well worth the wait * Bookseller *