LoveReading Says
Raw, beautiful, and lucidly poetic Donal Ryan’s The Queen of Dirt Island leaves its imprint on body, soul and heart as it tells the stories of four generations of women who live under the same roof in rural County Tipperary from the 1980s.
These women are warriors – a magnificently unconventional, outspoken clan of Nana Mary, daughter-in-law Eileen, and granddaughter Saoirse, who’s born on the day her father and paternal grandfather are killed.
Revealing the love that binds and nourishes the women through dramas and tragedies, and told in short vignettes, it’s a haunting novel of pride and bone-deep loyalty with a pull that sneaks up on you. You start off on the outside, looking into a raucous family, feeling intrigued, surprised, trying to make sense of how they function. Then, before you know it, you feel like a faithful insider who’d defend the women to the hilt.
There’s much sadness in their lives. Eileen was disowned by her father and brother for having a child outside marriage. Saoirse too falls pregnant at a young age, but in her case there are no men judging her or casting her out. She and baby Pearl are supported by her mother and Nana, and the four of them survive on love and loyalty, even as life hurls more upset at them.
As an example of their spirit, when Eileen is betrayed by underhand legal dealings around family-owned land, her fabulous response is to assert herself as Queen of Dirt Island with due flamboyance – “Fuck this” she utters before adorning film-star glasses. Meanwhile, Saoirse later rights a wrong done to her by a would-be writer boyfriend in a satisfying stroke of self-created justice.
Honest and stirring, with perfect dialogue and observations, this shockingly good tempest of a novel explores the deepest of bonds and the stories that bind us.
Joanne Owen
Find This Book In
The Queen of Dirt Island Synopsis
From the award-winning, Booker longlisted author of the number one bestseller, STRANGE FLOWERS, a searing, jubilant novel about four generations of women and the love and stories that bind them.
The Aylward women are mad about each other, but you wouldn't always think it. You'd have to know them to know - in spite of what the neighbours might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes - that their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world.
Their story begins at an end and ends at a beginning. It's a story of terrible betrayals and fierce loyalties, of isolation and togetherness, of transgression, forgiveness, desire, and love. About all the things family can be and all the things it sometimes isn't. More than anything, it is an uplifting celebration of fierce, loyal love and the powerful stories that last generations.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780857525215 |
| Publication date: |
18th August 2022 |
| Author: |
Donal Ryan |
| Publisher: |
Doubleday an imprint of Transworld Publishers Ltd |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
243 pages |
| Primary Genre |
General Fiction
|
| Other Genres: |
|
| Recommendations: |
|
Donal Ryan Press Reviews
'[A] master storyteller. The most vivid characters, so full of life. You read each short chapter wondering how he's crammed in so much heart and wonder, while the story itself ramps up to its quietly devastating and marvellous conclusion.' - Kit de Waal
This is a generous mosaic of a novel about the staying power of love and pride and history and family. While Donal Ryan is never afraid of all the meanness and sorrow of the world, he also manages to excavate the thrilling beauties that hold us together. He manages, with wit and grace, to illuminate the anonymous corners of human experience and get at the underworld of our souls. - COLUM McCANN
Donal Ryan is one of the finest novelists writing today and this is a gem of a novel. Full of humanity, humility, humour, drama and mystery, his characters are so vivid you feel they are sitting outside, waiting for him to conjure them to life. He writes with grace and precision, with love indeed, about who we are and why, about family history and the ghosts we carry. A haunting, exquisite masterpiece. - RACHEL JOYCE
I was thunderstruck by this exquisitely beautiful and powerful novel. This is writing of shimmering truthfulness, empathy and authority by the most consistently brilliant Irish writer of his generation. - Joseph O'Connor
Beautifully poised, sad, poetic and human....I loved every single line. - IAN RANKIN
'Donal Ryan repeatedly broke my heart and then soldered it back together with words of molten gold. The Queen of Dirt Island is a powerful tribute to mothers in all of their ferocity, tenderness and guilt. I loved this book with my whole patchwork heart. Eloquent, beautiful and threaded throughout with a joyful savage humour, a privilege to read, and re-read.' - LIZ NUGENT
The Queen of Dirt Island is the work of a master writer in full flow. Donal Ryan is uncommonly perceptive at finding greatness in humanity's goodness. This is his best novel yet. - RONAN HESSION
Donal Ryan makes writing look effortless. He manages to capture the world and all its broken beauty in one tiny corner of Ireland. His characters feel like people you've always known. His words seem to sing off the page. - JAN CARSON
In gorgeous, graceful prose, Donal Ryan tells the story of four generations of women in this tender, joyful gem of a novel. - PAULA HAWKINS
An endlessly surprising story of the heart's secret places, and what we hide there... This magnificent novel confirms Donal Ryan is a writer of rare and precious vision: he sees the world as it ought to be, and dares you to believe in it. - MICHAEL HUGHES
A stunning portrayal of intergenerational family love and the complications of the human condition. I was swept up in the world of the Aylward women: in their power and pain and mostly, in their fierce resilience. A novel full of compassion and honesty, where love triumphs. The prose is pitch perfect. - ELAINE FEENEY
