From what I can gather, this isn’t a new novel from Keane but rather one from years ago that’s being published in the UK for the first time. With that in mind, I found it amazing just how wonderful the storytelling is in this book, and how well it compares to Keane’s successful novel Ask Again, Yes from 2019. The two share similar themes of family, loss, secrets, and the Irish diaspora in America, but I found The Walking People to be even more poignant. It’s quite slow for the first half, set in rural coastal Ireland in the 1950s, but once the lonely Cahill sisters and their Irish traveller friend Michael board a ship heading for New York things start to get interesting.

The Cahill family live in poverty in primitive rural Ireland in the 1960s. At the beginning of the book they are the last family living in a row of otherwise derelict cottages, the children attend school sporadically and their father ekes a living through basic farming and poaching and selling salmon from the river. A tragedy leads to an encounter with the Wards, a family of tinkers or “walking people,” and a tenuous friendship forms between young Michael Ward and the Cahill daughters, Johanna and Greta. As young adults, the three leave home, family and tradition to make a new life in America, but things do not turn out as planned, and the pull of the past and of their Irish roots will threaten everything they hold dear.
I loved Mary Beth Keane’s book “Ask Again, Yes” which I read last year, so was eager to read this, but sadly was quite disappointed. It is well written but the narrative drags and key events in it often happen off the page, which seems a missed opportunity. The characters were a bit sketchy and not very well-rounded or even likeable, and the last section of the book covered so many years in a rush that it felt a bit unfinished.
I have since heard that this was Keane’s first book, so she has obviously honed her craft a lot since then. I will look forward to her next new work.

I Liked reading this book. It's a family Story with a lot of Irish Determination and strength

With thanks to Penguin Michael Joseph UK & Netgalley for the arc of this book in exchange for this review

I really enjoyed reading this novel. Mary Beth Keane is a great writer and I loved her other novel, Ask Again Yes.
In all honesty, I didn't love the ending of this book. I understand why it was done this way, its just a personal thing for me, but when the book ended I felt kind of ripped off. But thats just me and I would still recommend this to readers.

The Walking People is Mary Beth Keane's debut novel.

Set between a small remote village on the West of Ireland and the bustling outskirts of New York City, this novel spans the lives of sisters Greta and Johanna Cahill and Michael Ward, a local traveller boy, as they navigate from their humble beginnings in 1950s Ireland to modern day NYC.

I enjoyed this but would have liked a little more on Johanna and how her life turned out the way it did. She was such a strong presence in the first third of the book and then it just felt like she disappeared. I didn't feel like I really KNEW Greta or Michael either, especially after they left Ireland. There were a lot of unanswered questions for me. I would 100% read a spin-off about Johanna.

The parts I did enjoy were Michael's job as a "sandhog" and those descriptions; seeing the family through Julia's eyes; and the first third or so where it was set in Ireland. I really enjoyed all those.

If you like a character driven novel with honestly, not a whole amount of plot except emigration, then you will probably like this. This author is very talented at descriptive writing that makes you feel like you're there, and I still find it hard to believe that someone can just create characters like this from thin air.

The Walking People by Mary Beth Keane is an enjoyable novel about family secrets, the immigrant experience, love and loss.

Th Walking People follows the lives of Irish immigrants to New York. The first part of the novel, in Ireland in the 50s, started off very slowly and it took me a while to become involved. I think that was to do with the prologue and trying to make the connection between the characters.

Once the novel moved to New York I became entranced - but then I always love a story set in NYC!

This is Keane‘s first novel and I didn‘t love it as much as Ask Again,Yes , but that's no great slight as that was one of my favourites of of last year. I would still highly recommend this novel to lovers of family sagas, particularly if you like a 'slow-burning' book where there's no great revelations - more a study of relationships and the day-to-day.

Greta and Johanna, grow up with their parents and 3 much older brothers on a run down farm on the very edge of Ireland. Everyone for miles around as given up trying to farm their land and headed to America for a better life. As they grow older feisty Johanna is keen to join them and naively sees traveller Michael, one of the Walking People who turns his back on his family and way of life, as a means of helping her to get to America. At first I was worried this might just be another Irish emigrant saga but the characters are so well drawn and out of the ordinary, especially Greta the younger sister labelled as the needy slow one, that I was quickly drawn into their story and didn’t want it to end.

Ask Again, Yes was one of my favourite reads in 2019 so I was thrilled to see a new novel from this author. Ask Again, yes demonstrated the great joy of a book with fantastically drawn characters, beautiful writing and no need for huge plot twists and turns. If you are looking for the same from The Walking People you will not be disappointed.
Johanna and Greta are the youngest of 5 children living deep in the Irish countryside to a family of poachers. Johanna is desperate to escape rural Irish life and to seek adventure. Together with Greta, they meet Michael, the son of travellers who is desperate to settle in just one place. And Greta just longs for the love of her family. A family acquaintance visits Ireland from America and Johanna glimpses a chance of another wilder life away from home.

The first half of this novel is set in Ireland brilliantly fleshing out the main characters. It takes a good half of the book to uncover any kind of a real plot.... and that’s more than ok as I was totally swept along by the joy of the Cahill and Ward families. A gorgeous nostalgic family drama with real characters. Loved it.

I enjoyed this family saga of a man retiring and then a flashback to Ireland and how his family came to be.