Eimear McBride returns with new novel

In The Irish Times this Saturday, Roddy Doyle tells Róisín Ingle about The Women Behind the Door, the last of his Paula Spencer trilogy; Rachel Kushner discusses her Booker Prize longlisted novel Creation Lake with Sarah Gilmartin; Liam O’Callaghan, author of Blood & Thunder: Rugby and Irish Life, A History, reflects on the snobbery that has long dogged the game; there is an extract from David McWilliams’ new book, Money; Weekend Review’s photo essay explores the overlap of the Linen Triangle and Murder Triangle in Co Down, subject of my Troubles memoir, Dirty Linen. And there is a Q&A with Matt Haig about his career and latest novel.
Reviews are Chris Kissane on The Revelation of Ireland 1995-2024 by Diarmaid Ferriter; Patricia Craig on The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading by Sam Leith; Brian Cliff and Elizabeth Mannion on the best new crime fiction; Ruby Eastwood on Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan; Pat Carty on Chernobyl Roulette: A War Story by Serhii Plokhy; Helen Cullen on Our London Lives by Christine Dwyer Hickey; Charlene Hurtubise on Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner; John Boyne on Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd; Eilís Ní Dhuibhne on Frankie by Graham Norton; Muiris Houston on The Story of a Heart by Rachel Clarke; Adrienne Murphy on Love Me! By Marianne Power; Paul Clements on local history books; and Ian Hughes on How to Be a Citizen: Learning to Rely Less on Rules and More on Each Other by CL Skach.
This weekend’s Irish Times Eason offer is Normal People by Sally Rooney, just €5.99, a €6 saving.
Faber is to publish The City Changes Its Face, by award-winning Irish author Eimear McBride, “an intense story of passion, possessiveness and family”, next February. Billed as intimate and immersive, thenovel explores a passionate love affair tested to its limits.
It reads as a stand-alone but features the same characters as her brilliant second novel, The Lesser Bohemians, which won the 2016 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award.
“1995. London. Outside the filthy window, the city rushes by. But up in the flat, there is only Eily, 19, and Stephen, 39. The total obsession of new love.
“Eighteen months later, a rainy Camden night. Eily and Stephen retrace the course of their two-year romance now their world is merging with the commonplace and ties from the past are intruding. Stephen has reconnected with his long-lost teenage daughter Grace. Eily thinks about the future and their flat feels different. The city changes its face.”
McBride grew up in the west of Ireland and trained at Drama Centre London. Her first novel, A Girl is a Half-formed Thing, took nine years to find a publisher and received a number of awards, including the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, and the Goldsmiths Prize. In 2017 she was awarded the inaugural Creative Fellowship of the Beckett Research Centre, University of Reading. Strange Hotel, her third novel, was published in 2020. In 2022 she wrote and directed A Very Short Film About Longing (DMC/BBC Film) which was selected to screen in the 2023 London Film Festival.
McBride will visit St John’s College, Cambridge, to read from and discuss her work with Writer in Residence Vona Groarke on Friday, October 11th, 5-6.15pm, Old Divinity School. All welcome. Admission free. Reception to follow.
*
Now in its 12th year, the Dublin Festival of History runs from September 27th to October 13th. This year’s festival is the biggest yet, with over 250 free events, including talks, walks, exhibitions, and musical performances.
The festival begins with the annual Big Weekend at the Printworks, Dublin Castle, September 27th-29th, and highlights include:
Copies of the programme are available from all Dublin city libraries and online dublinfestivalofhistory.ie
*
The IFI and Penguin Random House celebrate 30 years of Paula Spencer, and the publication day of Roddy Doyle’s new novel, The Women Behind the Door, with a screening of Episode 4 of Family at 6.15pm on September 12th. Tickets on sale now.
Following the screening, Fintan O’Toole will host a conversation with Roddy Doyle and Ger Ryan (who played Paula in Family) about the legacy and impact of the character of Paula Spencer.
We first met Paula in 1994 in this ground-breaking television series about the Spencers, a working-class Dublin family living under the oppressive regime of abusive, alcoholic father Charlo (Seán McGinley). After the success of Family, Roddy Doyle continued to tell Paula’s story in his novels The Woman Who Walked into Doors (1996) and Paula Spencer (2006). The Women Behind the Door, publishing 12th September 2024, is the third chapter in her story. The panel will also discuss this new novel, where 66-year-old Paula – mother, grandmother, and survivor – cannot escape the ghosts of the past.
Tickets include a copy of the book, to be distributed on the night.
*
Paul Durcan: 80 at 80, an evening of poetry to celebrate his 80th birthday, is presented by Poetry Ireland and the Gate Theatre, as part of the Gate Theatre’s Gatecrashes series, on Monday, October 21st at 7.30pm.
The extraordinary career of one of Ireland’s most lauded and popular poets is being celebrated through readings of his much-loved poems.
Introduced by Niall MacMonagle who edited his latest collection, friends and admirers will read a selection of poems, including John O’Donnell, Harry Clifton, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Paula Meehan, Catriona Crowe, Theo Dorgan, Alan Gilsenan, Diarmaid Ferriter, Barry McGovern, Jean Byrne and Jarlath Burns. There will also be songs and tunes by Lisa Lambe and Steve Cooney.
Tickets are now on sale from the Gate Theatre Box Office at gatetheatre.ie or from 01-8744045.
*
Éigse Michael Hartnett 2024 takes place in Newcastle West, Co Limerick, from October 3rd to 6th and marks the 25th anniversary of Michael Hartnett’s death.
The winner of the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award 2024 is Dublin-born poet Tara Bergin for her collection, Savage Tales (Carcanet 2022). She has been lauded as a “master of the specific incident and illustrative detail” and a poet of “tremendous courage” by this year’s judges, Vona Groarke and Mark Roper. Roper called Savage Tales “utterly original, fiercely funny, compulsively readable, very vulnerable and hugely enjoyable.”
Among guests this year are Rita Ann Higgins, Jon Kenny, Mick Clifford, Marie Cassidy, Vona Groarke, Mark Roper, and Paddy Bushe, along with Claire Coughlan, Míchéal Mac Domhnaill, Natasha Remoundou and Michael Dooley who will launch his first collection In Spring We Turned to Water (Doire Press).
•
This year’s Baillie Gifford Prize longlisted books “shed new and brilliant light on our contemporary world through explorations of history, of memory, of science and nature” according to chair of judges, Isabel Hilton.
Two Booker winners, Richard Flanagan (2014) and Salman Rushdie (1981), and one Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner, Viet Thanh Nguyen (2016), make the list. To date, no author has “won the double”, of both the Baillie Gifford Prize and the Booker Prize.
The longlist spotlights Asian history, with books that provide a poignant exploration of both the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, and themes of identity and memory in the Vietnamese diaspora. Other subjects covered include the continued impact of colonialism and contemporary imperialism, experiences of displacement, the fragility of our natural environment and the ever-present threat of nuclear war.
The list features two authors previously recognised by the prize: Rachel Clarke (longlisted in 2020) and Sue Prideaux (shortlisted in 2012), alongside one debut author, Rachel Cockerell.
The shortlist will be announced on October 10th at Cheltenham Literature Festival, with the winner to be announced on November 19th.
The prize aims to recognise and reward the best of non-fiction and is open to authors of any nationality. It covers current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. The winning author will receive £50,000, with the other shortlisted authors receiving £5,000, bringing the total prize value to £75,000.
The longlist was chosen by Hilton; author and investigative journalist, Heather Brooke; comment and culture editor for New Scientist, Alison Flood; culture editor of Prospect, Peter Hoskin; writer and critic, Tomiwa Owolade; and author, restaurant critic and journalist, Chitra Ramaswamy.
The titles are:
Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. Bass
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer
The Story of a Heart by Rachel Clarke
Melting Point: Family, Memory and the Search for a Promised Land by Rachel Cockerell
Question 7 by Richard Flanagan
Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen
A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux
Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World by David Van Reybrouck, translated by David Colmer and David McKay
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World’s Ocean by Helen Scales
The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon by Adam Shatz
Isabel Hilton, chair of judges, said: “Reaching a longlist in a year when so many wonderful non-fiction books have been published was never going to be easy, but I could not be happier with the result. It is, of course, a list of remarkable and outstanding books, and they shed new and brilliant light on our contemporary world through explorations of history, of memory, of science and nature. Collectively this wonderful reflection of creativity, of critical thinking and great writing left us in no doubt that the non-fiction world is overflowing with energy and talent.”