A family saga sweeping through three generations from the 1970’s through to the end of the century, Donal Ryan’s fourth novel, like all of his previous books, is a thing of exquisite beauty. When Paddy and Kit Gladney discover that their only daughter of barely twenty has run away, they are devastated. For five years they hear nothing and fear the worst. So when Moll eventually arrives back home, as quietly as she left, her parents are delighted. But of course they don’t know the whole story. Yet.

Ryan’s characters are so poetically depicted, yet they ring true, they are utterly authentic. This is a writer in love with language and landscape and reading Ryan is like discovering profound truths that you recognise but could never have verbalised as he does. Full of intricate, small observances, it’s delicately nuanced and mystical and perfectly formed.

The writing is beautiful but the book sadly wasn’t for me, I liked the first half of the book which is set in Ireland and London following the story of Moll and her life but the second half jumps a generation and we’re following the story of her son which is where I lost interest.

Strange Flowers tells the story of Moll Gladney. Mainly set in Ireland, Strange Flowers follows the story of Moll's disappearance and then her subsequent return. The story is told from multiple viewpoints. Nothing is the same for Moll or her family after her return. The story is full of great and endearing characters. It’s no secret that Donal Ryan is my favourite Irish author and he’s done it again in Strange Flowers. This author can do no wrong! His writing is exceptional, lyrical and beautiful. His turn of phrase and sentence structure, second to none. I’ve heard many an author in discussions recently, wishing that they could write like Donal Ryan. It’s a very rare talent indeed. I loved this book like all past Donal Ryan novels.
My thanks to NetGalley.

Strange Flowers is a beautiful book by Donal Ryan, exploring the lives of a family in Ireland and in London. The main protagonist is Moll Gladney, a young Tipperary woman who disappears for five years without explanation to her parents. When she returns home, everyone's life changes forever.

I loved the vivid depiction of landscape and the way the author dips into characters heads to explore emotions. All the characters were perfectly drawn and I became attached to quite a few of them. The story had joy and sadness, but overall left me uplifted rather than depressed with the world.

A memorable and poignant story, highly recommended.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

Donal Ryan is a writer who likes a quirky timeline. His previous works have tended to take the form of successive short stories from different viewpoints and Strange Flowers is more of the same.

We meet Kit and Paddy Gladney, tenant farmers in Tipperary. Their daughter Moll, a good girl, has left home without leaving a trace. They are bewildered. They grieve. They feel the eyes of the village boring into them. Then, after five years, Moll returns. Successive sections follow different characters at different life stages until a final section allows Moll to fill in the gaps.

The narrative voice – which has been done so well in previous of Ryan’s works, is every bit as good here. Lilting Irish idiom places the characters as subservient to their setting. It could be timeless (and for much of the first section the time setting is obscure), but modern details of a wider world – Dublin, London, aeroplanes – encroach. The story is intriguing, too, and explores themes of property ownership, race, ambition, sexuality.

How and ever, there is a big biblical theme running through the work. The sections are named for books of the Bible. There is a meta-narrative woven into one section about Jesus restoring sight to a blind man. I am prepared to believe that many of the set pieces are directly analogous to Biblical scenes or parables – but not being up on my Scripture I think these all passed me by. Maybe there was some big message about people being more than a sum of their traits and appearances but that’s really rather an obvious statement. My own thinking about referential novels is that it’s fun when you get the references but they don’t really add to the profundity of the work.

Overall this felt like a very tightly controlled novel where sometimes the structure felt a little too rigid, forcing the pace and sequencing of information. Much of Joshua’s section, for example, only really became meaningful from reading subsequent sections. I am a great believer in show, don’t tell – but if you are going to tell, then do it at the same time as you are showing. The shifts in point of view and time were abrupt – intentionally so as that seems to be Donal Ryan’s thang – but I wonder whether it might have been possible to create a more powerful and sympathetic work from interweaving some of the threads.

Still glad to have read Strange Flowers, but my three and a half stars feel like they should have been more.

Spoiler free review!

This is my first time reading Donal Ryan, and I was very excited to encounter him after hearing great reviews for 'From a Low and Quiet Sea'. I was not disappointed when I picked this up!
While the book is quite short, it packs so much into it. The story was beautiful and very sad at times, and the characters felt so alive and real to me.
I liked the initial mystery of where Moll Gladney from Tipperary went for five years, and how it unravels after her return. The grief that Moll's parents felt when she left, and the simultaneous happiness and anger they felt when she returned was written so powerfully and was heartbreaking to read.

Ryan's prose was absolutely stunning, and gorgeous to read. The way he describes landscapes and the local area that Moll and her parents live in makes you feel as if you are there, and he evokes powerful imagery and emotions through his writing. 1970s Tipperary and London have rarely felt so vivid to me.

I will say I did not fully love the story that Joshua tells to Honey in the latter half of the book, and while I understood its significance I found myself a bit bored by it and Joshua's story arc. But I loved every other characters story and the changes of point of view. Moll is a very cold and sad person, and I did not particularly like her personality, but I understood her motives. I absolutely loved Paddy and Alexander, they truly were just lovely people inside and out.

Overall, I would recommend this book. I did enjoy it very much and I look forward to reading more of Donal Ryan's work. 4/5 from me because I liked the second half of the story significantly less than the first, but the quality of writing remains strong throughout.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a proof of this book!!

"Wake up, wake up, the world is hard and it rushes on regardless of your heart"

Having found Ryan's earlier works too gritty for me, I approached Strange Flowers with a degree of trepidation. Strange Flowers is set in 1970s rural Ireland where 19 year old Moll Gladney leaves her family early one morning without explanation, to return just as mysteriously 5 years later. She does not return alone however, and therein lies the tale. Molls return creates quite the stir in her small village and she becomes the subject of much speculation and local gossip. However it's the reason why she left, not disclosed until later on in the book, which is the most compelling part of the story for me.

The story is told in present time, and is divided into a series of chapters, each narrated by a different character. Ryan uses this device to great effect to slowly reveal the story to the reader, never disclosing more than he has to at any given time. There are some beautiful authentic characters in the novel especially Molls parents, Paddy and Kit, who lived a simple rural life, based on their faith. The book accurately portrays the Ireland of that time, exploring attitudes to sexuality, racism and religion and the role and power of the priest in society. The only aspect of the book I disliked and found distracting was the "story within a story" as narrated by Joshua. It failed to connect with the main narrative for me. The meta-narrative is a re-telling of a parable, and continues the religious theme in the book where chapters are called after various books of the Bibles. Overall this was a very enjoyable and poignant read, and one which resonated with me as a child of that era.
Thank you to @netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for this ARC in return for my honest review.

This book starts so well with the early morning disappearance of Moll Gladney. Her father Paddy finds her gone one morning, along with the leather valise that she keeps in her room. The bus driver noticed her on the early bus, but didn’t feel it was his business to interfere. Moll’s departure causes ripples in Tipperary, but then so does her return. Five years later, at the age of 25, she comes home from London with as little explanation as when she left. If it wasn’t for the row with their landlady Ellen, and the appearance of Alexander who seems to have followed her.

The book then splits into multiple narratives - one following Alexander in London, to the next generation, before returning to Ellen and Moll, but in their older, wiser years. All the narratives are linked to a section of the Bible such as Alexander’s time in Ireland linked to Exodus or the conclusion which is a final Revelation. I’m a Roman Catholic so biblical allusions are not unusual to me but I think a reader with mo knowledge of religion might struggle to understand their meaning or relevance. I didn’t enjoy the metanarrative either and felt the novel came apart a bit at this point. The novel excelled in its evocation of the landscape and atmosphere. The author is clearly a study of human behaviour and emotion because this was so skilfully written into the some of the characters. Others I felt I didn’t fully know even at the end. This writer is clearly very talented and. I would try some of his other work.

I ADORE Donal Ryan's writing and one of very few writers that I re-read, so I am really happy to say that Strange Flowers lived up to my hopes and more.
As in previous work, I was pulled helpless into this story of love in its many forms, and was genuinely sad to leave it. The writing is atmospheric with stunning depictions of landscape and scenery, and his talent for evocation of characters and relationships is truly remarkable. I particularly loved the portrayal of Paddy and Kit, the ageing couple who are devastated at the outset of the book by their daughter's unexplained disappearance. These are quiet, ordinary people and it's tempting to call them "simple" but the way they are portrayed is far from simple - Ryan gets underneath and inside managing to evoke their hopes, their dreams, their sadness and their capacity for love and forgiveness in his usual beautiful yet understated way.
The structure worked really for me, with elements of the narrative held back like puzzle pieces and while these did come together in the end it was in a subtle way and without the fanfare of a "big reveal". I didn't care too much for the story within a story which i though was a bit distracting but still a solid 5 star read for me and one that I will go back to.

Beautiful writing here, as I would expect from Donal Ryan. I’ve enjoyed a few of his previous novels and short stories, and much of what I loved before is here in this one. Atmosphere and landscape for sure, and strong characters I engaged with immediately. Paddy and Kit are wonderful creations, accepting that they are where they are and have what they have, happy in their quiet faith. When everything changes in their lives, they accept whatever comes their way - first their daughter’s disappearance, then her reappearance and a very different situation to be accommodated. Others are not so welcoming of the new and exotic.

I can only assume this is the point of the ‘story within the story’ that at first seemed not to sit easily with the goings on in Ireland. We are not getting the full story about what went on, why Moll left, what she has been doing and why she has returned, certain elements are hidden until near the end. I’m not sure it really added much to my overall experience, perhaps my religious education is lacking and I am missing too many of the biblical allusions. No worries, though, I still found in this novel everything I had hoped for in terms of the writing and the feel of a small community in rural Ireland. Highly recommended.

Strange Flowers by Donal Ryan is a wonderful book. I was engaged with the characters from the first line. Again Donal manages to lead us up and down country roads and into the hearts of all that reside there. The deep hurting type of love is what I felt effuse from each different strange flower in this garden of human life. Donal opens up the characters slowly and gently with his exact precision and patience. The countryside is laid bare to witness this from all sides and the beautiful wild Ireland is a strength that all the characters feed from. This book is a fantastic read from start to end.
Thank you Donal Ryan!

'Strange Flowers' begins in 1972 in an exquisitely painted Tipperary, with the modest and hardworking Gladney family. They lead a peaceful life on the land of a rich local family, and though the family don't have very much they seem quite content. However, their lives are torn apart by their only daughter running away, with no warning, and only returning five years later with a secret and a stranger in tow. I thought I had the whole book figured out right away, but I was pleased and surprised with where the author went with this premise.

The story of the disappearance of Moll Gladney, and her return and its consequences, is told by a variety of narrators. Ryan's quiet, decent and commonplace characters, whether they are from rural Ireland, war torn Syria (as in 'From a Low and Quiet Sea') or, as in the case of the one of the characters of this most recent novel, 1970s London, they are relatable to anyone. Places in this book feel completely different, not only because Ryan describes his characters visual surroundings so well, but because he imbues them with different feelings. The idyllic smallholding not far from a Tipperary village, bustling and alien Dublin which feels too far removed to its visitors to be part of the same country as they are from, and faraway seeming London, which is the window to the rest of the world, as much a place of exile as it is of opportunity and anonymity.

Though I adored this book, the only part of the book I would have done with less of was a story within a story in a section set in the section of the book that takes place in London in the 1990s. This is possibly down to personal taste as I find it hard to sustain interest when this device is employed, and I felt its disruption with reactions from the characters slowed me down in my reading. However, it did serve its purpose and I was really pleased with how the book ends.

One of the main concerns in this book is how people cope with difference when they themselves haven't seen very much of the world. I wondered will readers outside Ireland understand how stifling a religious, rural community in the 1970s could have been to anyone who felt like an outsider, but this feels relevant to people from any small community at any time. Certainly, this felt very authentic to me, whether reactions of characters were narrow minded or, more often in Ryan's fair and thoughtful characters, quite easily surprised but determined to do the right thing. I'm really looking forward to when the book comes out to discuss this further as I would hate to spoil anything now.

This book was exactly what I needed right now, and what many readers will need this Autumn when it is published, due to the strange and distressing events of the year so far. It is a believable, compelling story told so beautifully by an expert story teller, a lyrical testament to the kindness of people, the importance of community and the power of redemption. I can't wait for everyone to read 'Strange Flowers.'

Strange Flowers is a beautifully written story about love and sadness. Romantic love, filial love and love for your roots are all entwined in Donal Ryan's novel. The sadness is also entwined in the pages of the book. The sadness of not being true to yourself, the sadness of loneliness and unrequited love. In 1973 Moll Gladney left home, got on a bus and disappeared. Her parents Paddy and Kit are devastated. They are bewildered by Moll's disappearance and are adamant she hasn't run away because she was pregnant. This is an Ireland " where it was nearly better to be dead than unmarried and pregnant". For 5 years Paddy and Kit live in a limbo where they grieve eventhough they do not believe Moll is dead and simply exist in a world of not knowing. Then Moll returns unannounced claiming the need to just come home. A visit from the local sergeant and parish priest (the pervasive symbiosis of Church and State in 1970s Ireland) announcing that a black man is below in Nenagh looking for Moll changes the homesick narrative very quickly. Moll has a husband and a child who have come looking for her. Her husband Alexander is the son of West Indian immigrants to London. The shared experiences of immigrants regardless of background is well told. Alexander and their son Joshua move back to Ireland and their story becomes part of the novel seamlessly. You would imagine that a mixed race relationship in 1970s Ireland would be a great cause of gossip especially in a rural area and you would be right. But as Alex's father Barney says "skin is only there to keep a body waterproof and the colour matters not". There is racism, but there is also unconditional love, tragedy and a sense of place. Josh Elmwood is the strange flower of the title and he too gets lost for a while as he gets older only to be rescued unknowingly by Honey a grandchild of his paternal grandparents neighbours. #StrangeFlowers flows from rural Ireland to vibrant Notting Hill and back. Moll's belief that there is something in her because she doesn't fit the norm and Alex's love for Moll that is mainly unrequited is another thread in this exquisite book. "Adding sadness to sadness only causes more sadness". Donal Ryan spins gossamer threads with words that draw you into his novel gently and before you know it you are bound to the story by chains of steel. I couldn't put this book down and would wholeheartedly recommend it. My own sadness is that I finished it. A moving read that stays with youwhich is a testament to the beauty of Donal Ryan's writing. #StrangeFlowers #Netgalley

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I had previously read Donal Ryan’s “From a Low and Quiet Sea”, a book which I summarised as “Overall an enjoyable novel, admirably intentioned and from a clearly talented writer; but one which I felt lacked true depth and perhaps fell short of its potential”. I was surprised when it was longlisted for the 2018 Booker Prize – although many other readers that I respect considered it shortlist material.

The Genesis of the book is in rural Ireland in the 1960s – Paddy (a postman) and Kit Gladney, aged either side of 60, are long term tenants in a cottage owned by the local landowners – the Jackmans, but their settled life is torn apart when their 20 year-old daughter inexplicably leaves home and cannot be traced. Five years later she walks back into their life, with only a limited explanation of her years in London, but any sense of a prodigal type celebration is caught short, firstly by an unexplained but almost immediate row with Ellen (the mother of the Jackman family) and then by news delivered portentously by the local Judges (the local priest and police) of a man in a neighbouring town who seems to have pursued Moll from London – Alexander Elmwood.

Thereafter the book moves forwards in time – switching to the viewpoint of Alexander (both in London and then in Exodus in Ireland) and then to the next generation (in particular a troubled writer – more of poems and short stories than Songs – Joshua, the Strange Flower of the title) before returning to Moll and Ellen – now in the later years more full of the Wisdom of age and able to reflect on Galdney/Jackman incidents – both pass and present; and the book concludes with a final Revelation (one of a series which unspool through the book).

The writing is languid and full of empathy, character insight and gentle description – exactly what we would expect of the author.

The book is infused with Christian and biblical references. Paddy (and particularly) Kit are traditional, Marian Catholics. Alexander’s parents are from more of a Pentecostalist Gospel background. The Bible (with Apocrypha) provides the theme-appropriate headings of each section of the book (as set out in my plot summary) and as the book progresses it is interleaved with a retelling of part of John’s Gospel, which in turn serves as something of a meta-narrative for the book.

I am not sure what a non-Christian would make of all of this and to what extent they would absorb all the references and allusions: but as a Christian I found the retelling of the story, despite a promising start, to be shallow and lacking insight (pun intended).

And this I think gets to the heart of why the book did not quite work for me: the book seems to often to be “neither one thing or the other”.

Putting any religious aspect to one side, the idea of introducing a meta-narrative short story does not seem to fit the rest of the book which is very straightforwardly told.

The book relies too much on deliberately withheld revelations – but ones which when they are revealed do not prove terribly dramatic.

And a book very short on action, has a single rather implausible piece of set piece action.

In each case therefore I felt a common novelistic device had been inserted into a gentle literary novel where it did not quite fit, albeit it gamely struggles to engage with the locality in which it has been transplanted, while knowing always it is not fully welcome, only to cause later repercussions for the success of the writing.

Now if this itself turns out to be a meta-meta literary reference to Alexander, his hurling career, his relationship with Moll and the impact on Joshua – then this is very clever indeed.

I look forward, nearer to publication, to reading more views on this novel, as well as interviews with the author on his intentions.

My thanks to Random House UK for an ARC via NetGalley

Beautiful writing as you would expect from Donal Ryan, 'Strange Flowers' is set in 1970’s rural Ireland, and opens with the devastating effect on a couple, Kit and Paddy Gladney, as their only child, Moll, remains missing for five years. Her reappearance naturally turns their world upside down once more, transporting the reader through waves of emotive narrative as a cast of characters reveal a compelling tale that comes full circle. With a poignant, though satisfying ending, the differing viewpoints paint a vivid picture of the era’s social attitudes to race, sex, love and familial relationships.

After reading From a Low and Quiet Sea last year and giving it 2 stars, I decided to give Donal Ryan another chance with Strange Flowers. I was wrong.

Let me cut straight to the chase here: the writing in Strange Flowers was not enjoyable, especially in the first half. It's been a while since I've read a book with such a glaring, painfully distracting problem with its writing, specifically the run-on sentences riddled with "and" after "and" after "and." I have never in my life been so alert to the word "and" than when I was reading the first half of this book. I have no idea if this was intentional or not, but either way it was so distracting.I could not absorb anything I was reading because it felt like a little ping went off in my brain every time I came across yet another "and." 

Aside from the writing—which is frankly a huge issue to be putting aside, considering it's 99% of the reason why this novel irritated me so much—I found myself not at all engaged by this story. It started out intriguing enough: I liked the focus on a small family in a quiet, rural setting, the exploration of how a family comes together over multiple generations. But the same issue that I had with From a Low and Quiet Sea cropped up soon enough. I much prefer to see characters' emotions and thoughts play out in real time, as opposed to being told them in retrospect. Donal Ryan's writing does the latter almost to the exclusion of the former—that is, it's the kind of writing that tells you what happened instead of letting you watch it happen on the page.

Lessons in love and loss abound in this book. A sensitive story told deftly by the author. I highly recommend this.

Strange Flowers took me by surprise. I expected this book to be good, but it was instead good in a way that wrapped itself around my mind and crept into my heart without me expecting it.

This story is told in multiple viewpoints. It is centred around Moll Gladney's disappearance and unexpected reappearance years later. This incident is regarded as the catalyst and the core hook or mystery behind the story. However, this story isn't just Moll's story. Featuring viewpoints from Moll's family and friends, these viewpoints run seamlessly into one another, patched into a heartwarming whole. There is no main character, but there are people and places and things that have happened that are essential pieces in the whole puzzle that is the story.

Normally, I'm not a big fan of religion in books, but I thought that the belief and faith in this book was brought up in a way that was touching and beautiful in its own mysterious, marvellous way. It showed me the gentle, forgiving truths of love and how it is weaved into our different lives. I was touched at the way Alexander loved Moll, at how strongly Kit and Paddy loved their family, how well they understood their daughter and loved her no matter her faults.

The writing is engaging, and there's something to be said about it slipping into different point of views with such ease. There is no confusing language, but the characters have distinct voices while the overall tone of the story is maintained. There is a story within this story, which I found reflected the character who had written it very well and fitted the story alright, even if I felt impatient at it partway through it.

In a nutshell, Strange Flowers is a well written book that is enchanting, sincere, and filled with understanding that may just make you weep or tear up a little (I know that I did).

Set in Tipperary, Ireland from the 1970s to present day telling the story of the Gladney family and what happens to them after their daughter, Moll, goes missing for five years, I felt that the novel flowed well between the different narratives, characters and timelines but I finished with the feeling that I hadn't got to know the characters more than beyond a surface level. The 'story within a story' didn't work at all for me either, but, as others have noted, this books excels in the depiction of the characters emotions and inner turmoil. It's just unfortunate that, for this reader, things don't come together as a whole.

Beautiful writing - as is to be expected from Ryan - but I have to say the story left me feeling pretty cold.

Donal Ryan's writing is stunningly beautiful, the way he conveys complex feelings like shame and regret without ever being exploitative is masterful - but the construction and the pacing of this story do not manage to develop enough immersive force. The novel opens with the disappearence of young Moll Gladney from Tipperary, Ireland (the author's home region) - five years later, Moll suddenly comes back, and it's impossible to give further details without spoiling the plot which in this case fully relies on one reveal piling up on the next one: We learn secrets about Moll and the people she brings back with her, about neighbors, parents, children etc. - a whole social web is untangeld and laid bare until finally, at the very end, we learn why Moll left in the first place. While looking at individual destinies and feelings, Ryan discusses themes like social inequality, racism, violence, family, love, sexual taboos and religion.

All those twists and turns we are offered somehow do not converge with the contemplative, lyrical writing though, and as Ryan started shifting viewpoints, I started struggling to keep my interest. Plus: I'm all for experimental narrative constructions, but the lengthy short story one character writes and that is of course a meta-narrative to the main plot, inserted in multiple fragments, jumped the shark for me (as a counter example, Kunzru does the same thing in his new book Red Pill, but as the whole text is fast, experimental and wild, it makes sense in the grand narrative scheme - here, it mainly annoyed me).

The way Ryan evokes atmosphere and describes landscapes is once again beautiful, and some characters like Moll's father are rendered with a wonderful quiet dignity, while others remain projection surfaces. This book is less about character development than about character analysis, the unraveling of secrets long buried, but also the strategic revelation of information by the author to keep the reader constantly guessing - unfortunately, there is just too much of it, which as the story moves along makes the whole thing appear more and more contrived.

Donal Ryan is one of the great Irish writers working today, his empathy and knack for atmospheric prose are admirable, but this isn't his best work.