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Wild Houses

Colin Barrett

$49.99

Hardback

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English
Jonathan Cape Ltd
25 February 2024
It's the biggest weekend of the year and everything is about to change - the thrilling, riotous debut novel from the Observer Best New Novelist.

As Ballina prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, the simmering feud between small-time dealer, Cillian English, and County Mayo's fraternal 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.
By:  
Imprint:   Jonathan Cape Ltd
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 224mm,  Width: 143mm,  Spine: 26mm
Weight:   379g
ISBN:   9780224099851
ISBN 10:   022409985X
Pages:   272
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  ELT Advanced ,  Primary
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

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.

Reviews for Wild Houses

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 *


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