An exquisite, heart-breaking novel about the end of an affair by an new Irish voice
Billy O'Callaghan is the author of the critically acclaimed novel My Coney Island Baby, which has been translated into nine languages and was shortlisted for the Encore Award 2020. Stories in his collection The Boatman and Other Stories were shortlisted for the Costa Short Story Award and for Writing.ie Short Story of the Year in the An Post Irish Book Awards. He lives in Douglas, a village on the edge of Cork City.
Novel of the year is My Coney Island Baby, by Billy O’Callaghan, a
lush, precise, poetic account of a love affair that ends the way
most love affairs do. We knew O’Callaghan to be a master of the
short story, and here he shows the grand reach of his powers as a
novelist.
*Irish Times *Books of the Year**
Billy O’Callaghan’s new novel grips from the opening page. The
stride of his sentences is long and powerful, his vision raw. A
spectrum of intensities from grief to love is revealed as
relationships unfold with an honesty that is utterly
believable.
*Bernard MacLaverty*
O’Callaghan [has made a] significant achievement in this fine
novel… Good books remind us of other good books and in its
treatment of adultery this one calls to mind thematic ancestors
such as Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina and The Scarlet Letter.
*Sunday Times*
A poignant, piercing meditation on middle age and the passing of
time… these characters will linger with you long after the book is
closed.
*Guardian*
Quiet, subtle and deeply moving… This is a fine novel, with
elegance and wisdom lying beneath an unpretentious surface and
O’Callaghan, a gifted writer, has managed to do that most difficult
of things: take a quiet, almost everyday story and transform it
into a thing of beauty.
*Irish Times*
[My Coney Island Baby] is the story of two ordinary people trapped
in their ordinary lives. But in the hands of O’Callaghan it is
magnified to the truly extraordinary. A great tragedy. I long
thought Anita Brookner the high priestess when it comes to telling
the tales of loneliness and defeat. But she’s now got company.
*Sunday Independent*
My Coney Island Baby is that rare thing: a love story that manages
to be romantic and realistic… Billy O’Callaghan describes their
love with a truthfulness that is often heart-rending... [his
writing] demands to be taken slowly and savoured.
*The Times*
One of the finest Irish fictions of last year.
*RTE Guide*
Billy O’Callaghan’s work is at once subtle and direct, warm and
clear-eyed, and never less than beautifully written. He has a
moving ability to express the hopes and fears of “ordinary” people,
and he knows intimately the ways of the world. He richly deserves
an international reputation. This writer is the real thing.
*John Banville*
A welcome voice to the pantheon of new Irish writing.
*Edna O'Brien*
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