Barrett, Colin

A remarkably resonant portrait of everyday lives in Ireland. Barrett’s gritty and raucous first novel features the hallmarks of his acclaimed short story collections Homesickness (a New York Times Best Book) and Young Skins: linguistic dexterity in the service of fully realized characters and vivid depictions of hard-scrabble small-town Irish life.

Barrett’s mostly dogged characters live hardscrabble lives, and in this strong second collection--not a repeat act--readers become involved in the simple but crucial issue of how they will manage.

Justly acclaimed for his lyrical, deadpan style by some of the giants of contemporary Irish literature, including Anne Enright and Colm Tóibín, Barrett offers an extraordinary debut that heralds a brutal yet alluring new voice in contemporary fiction. [See Prepub Alert, 9/15/14.]