Mixing Thelma and Louise and Lisa McInerney’s The Glorious Heresies, with a dash of Pulp Fiction, Iron Annie heralds the arrival of a major new Irish writer.
Luke Cassidy is a writer from the Irish border town of Dundalk. His debut novel, Iron Annie, was published by Bloomsbury Books in 2021. He has been published in the Irish Times, Le Monde Diplomatique, Literary Hub, and LA Review of Books, amongst others. He has recently contributed a short story to the New Island Books anthology of writing from the Irish border region, The New Frontier, and adapted Iron Annie for the stage, which toured Ireland in late 2021 and will have more dates in Ireland in the UK in Summer 2022.
A queer underworld Thelma & Louise with better jokes ... Very funny
... Cassidy keeps tight control of a story that's simultaneously
state of the nation, romance and crime.
*Sarah Moss, Irish Times*
Written in an exhilarating, lyrical vernacular, in much the way of
Anna Burns, Kevin Barry or even Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting ...
Aoife is a character redeemed to a large extent by her
extraordinary narrative voice, yet Cassidy also summons up an
entire small-town world here, one that’s both fiercely informed by
under-the-radar community bonds and at the mercy of wider seismic
political forces. Terrific
*Daily Mail*
[A] barnstorming gangland comedy set among a motley band of
drug-runners from Dundalk, Ireland, where debut author Luke Cassidy
was born ... Cassidy’s ingenious use of rhythm and phonetics make
Aoife’s voice sing from the page ... Iron Annie is a blast – tender
and brutal, funny and sad. It also has interesting things to say
about hot topics such as gender and Ireland’s relationship with
post-Brexit Britain. Above all, though, it’s a spectacular feat of
firecracker prose. Not to be missed ... A full-spectrum thrill from
a first-time novelist who looks destined for great things
*Metro*
Absolutely brilliant. Fizzes with energy - and with raunchiness,
colour, beauty, and insight
*Sue Leonard, Irish Examiner*
What an exquisite novel Iron Annie is. The narrative voice fair
crackles: it’s full of wonder, grit, insight, sadness and joy, and
is quite beautiful. And Aoife is one of those fictional characters
that arrives only once or twice in an age, sublimely rendered and
completely unforgettable.
*Donal Ryan, author of The Spinning Heart and From a Low and Quiet
Sea*
Iron Annie is absolutely everything I love in a book. The energy,
the voice, the language, the characters, all real, raw and utterly
convincing. Luke Cassidy is an incredible talent, with an ear for
language to rival that of Kevin Barry, I could hear every single
word.
*Fíona Scarlett, author of Boys Don’t Cry*
Wonderful, imaginative, highly original emotional rollercoaster of
a story
*Peter James*
Iron Annie is a novel full of grit and pearls – its language
crackles with life. Luke Cassidy is a writer with a keen eye and a
finely-tuned ear
*Ronan Hession, author of Leonard and Hungry Paul*
Utterly original ... I think this book is like a bolt from the blue
for Irish writing
*Niamh Campbell, author of This Happy.*
It’s apparent from the opening lines of Iron Annie that Luke
Cassidy can write. His prose fizzes with energy and music, and the
reader is immediately plunged into the anarchic underbelly of
Ireland and the lives of Cassidy’s vivid characters.
*Graeme Macrae Burnet, author of His Bloody Project*
It’s wild and fierce and full of awful life. Also dead funny . . .
This needs to be slapped on the arse and let out snorting into the
world like a mustang horse
*Niall Griffiths, author of Grits, Sheepshagger and Stump*
Iron Annie marks the arrival of a fresh and compelling young voice
in literary fiction . . . These complex, funny, tender, lewd and
lovely characters will grab you by the throat from the first line
and dare you to stop reading
*Emily Rapp Black, author of Poster Child, The Still Point of the
Turning World, Cartography for Cripples and Sanctuary*
Iron Annie is a staggering debut novel. And what makes it so
stylish and ferocious isn’t the drugs, the brutal violence, or even
the wild love and sex – it’s the language. I’ve never read anything
like the sentences in here.
*Rachel DeWoskin, author of Banshee, Big Girl Small, and Foreign
Babes in Beijing*
Brave and fearless … Put me in the mind of Irvine Welsh’s
Trainspotting … It snaps and crackles.
*Claudia Carroll, Eason Books Club*
Amazing first novel filled with drugs and sex and rock and roll …
It’s so dense and rich. I’m dying to see the play.
*Keith Walsh, Eason Book Club*
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