Donal Ryan doesn't disappoint! Another great story, three generations of women in rural Ireland.
Vivid descriptions and fiery dialogue make you feel like part of the family.

This is not a sequel to Donal Ryan’s earlier novel, Strange Flowers, but some of the main characters from that one feature in this (in much the same way as in Elizabeth Strout’s novels, another of my favourite authors) and I think the reader’s experience will be much enhanced if they have read the earlier one. Not essential, though, by any means.

If you like Irish writing and if you like reading about what it is like to be Irish, this will be heaven for you. Told in a straightforward way, this story of a family of four generations of women, single but connected (oh so connected), is a joy. We get a real feel for their lives in a village in rural Ireland.

Some beautiful description:

‘There was a path in the grass that wound from the puddled earth around the graveyard gates all the way down to the V of a stone wall in the back corner where her father waited above the fires of Hell and below the light of Heaven, under the long branches of a yew tree that Nana said was two thousand years old. Older than Christ himself. And it’ll be still there, still alive, when we’re all dust. Saoirse wondered why the yew tree, with its poison berries and mean looking leaves, should be so loved by God that it would be given eternal life.’

Key to it all is the dialogue, just brilliant, and the characters, particularly Nana and Mother. Their personalities and their relationship hold the whole family together. These examples from Nana:

‘I was never able to have any more after Chris, you know. Whatever he was at inside in me he made a pure hames of my pipework. He started as he meant to go on, anyway, and that’s for sure.’

‘You only get one life, and no woman should spend any part of it being friends with men. That’s not what men are for.’

And the outsider looking in:

‘It was all talk, of course, and none of it meant. Honey told Saoirse later that she loved to listen to these exchanges, to consider where she’d plant her camera if she were to record them, whether she’d use a grip or handheld, whether she’d zoom into the face of each speaker or create a fly-on-the-wall effect. And that Sunday she took her vows for Pearl, who was swaddled in ancient lace, surrounded by love’.

Donal Ryan is such a talented writer. I loved every page of this and can’t recommend it highly enough.

You'd know this was a Donal Ryan book a mile off because of its lyrical writing and everyday down-to-earth setting. I think it's my favourite of his; I really loved it. The beauty of it is the relationships between the women, captured so well by real, fantastically well-written dialogue. The other characters are also very interesting but at its core are the women. I read it over a weekend and missed it as soon as I finished it. It's a real glimpse into people's lives and the heightened emotions in dealing with family. With many laugh out loud moments too, humorous because they are so typically Irish. I'll be telling everyone I know to read it.

The Queen of Dirt Island is Saoirse’s mother Eileen, so called because she’s a beautiful girl, brought up on a farm by a little island on which she and her brother spent hours playing as children. However, it’s not Eileen’s childhood that Ryan focuses on in the novel but Saoirse’s. Brought up by a single parent – her father died just after her birth – she is both strong and vulnerable. Capable of spurning the most popular boy in the vicinity and holding her own against a meddling social worker, she is also prey to vile innuendo and outright insults from some of the small-minded in Nenagh. Most unkind of all is her uncle, her mother’s childhood companion, who tells her straight that his sister ‘broke my parents’ hearts. She’s a whore.’ It is at this moment that Saoirse ‘felt, bearing down on her from above and closing in from all sides, all the meanness and sorrow of the world.’
Ryan captures brilliantly the day-to-day dialogue of feisty women. Grandmother Mary Aylward, mother of Eileen’s dead husband, is a constant support, a source of common sense and a great wit. His depiction of the day-to-day conversations between the three generations of women is glorious: compassionate, funny, down to earth, overflowing with love and yet never sentimental.
For those who must have a plot-driven novel, ‘The Queen of Dirt Island’ may not be for them. However, who needs complicated plotting when all manner of human traits and truths are explored through the Aylwards, their relations and their neighbours in such thoughtful and beguiling ways? This is the second of Ryan’s novels set in this community and I’m very much hoping that there’ll be a third. What a wonderful writer!
My thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Doubleday for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

The Queen of Dirt Island - Donal Ryan
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Thanks so much to Netgalley UK and Random House UK Transworld Publishers and the author Donal Ryan for the chance to read and review an ARC of this beautiful book due to be published on 18th August 2022.

Having read Donal Ryans 'Strange Flowers' last year and really enjoying it, I was so excited to get approved a copy of Donals latest novel prior to its publication date and couldn't wait to get stuck in.

He just writes so beautifully and his love of Ireland and the Irish countryside and language shines through his writing from the offset.

The Queen of Dirt Island takes us back to the small community of Nenagh in rural Ireland. The narrative is structured on 3 generations of Aylward women - Mary, Eileen (Mary's daughter in law) and Eileens' daughter Saoirse. Donal Ryan has a gift of bringing his characters to life, so much so that you really do become totally absorbed in their world. The characters are so well written and well developed, definitely the part that stood out for me the most and the characters are what make the book stand out in my opinion.

While I didn't love 'The Queen of Dirt Island' quite as much as 'Strange Flowers' there is absolutely no denying the author will pull you in and have you completely absorbed in the plot and storyline from the very beginning. It is not a fast paced read but it is so typically Irish and so beautifully written and the story is told in the most lyrical and moving style.

It is simply beautiful.

I loved it.

It is one I will most definately be recommending.

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This was a really enjoyable read for me. The characters were lovely and their warmth and loyalty towards one another was touching. The success of one of the characters despite her background was a bit over romantic for me but I would still like to read more of his author's work.

This is a kind of follow-up to his last novel, Strange Flowers. He gets better and better. This is my favourite of his books so far. I love it even more than The Thing About December, which I think is one of the finest Irish novels of all time.

Mary, her daughter in law Eileen, Eileen’s daughter Saoirse and Saoirse’s daughter Pearl all live together in a house in an estate in a small Tipperary town. These women bicker and keep secrets from each other, but they are also incredibly caring and loyal to each other. Saoirse tells the story of the lives of the four women over multiple years as they deal with grief, unexpected pregnancies, family dramas and romantic relationships.

This book is character driven with no real climax to the plot. I shouldn’t like it, but as with all of Ryan’s books, I do. His writing is lyrical and engaging, making this the perfect book to read over a weekend, or even in one sitting. Fans of Donal Ryan will be happy to hear that we revisit characters from ‘Strange Flowers’ and some of his other books in ‘The Queen of Dirt Island’. This short, beautiful read is definitely worth picking up.

Thank you NetGalley and Doubleday for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Queen of Dirt Island takes us back to the same small Tipperary town as Strange Flowers, again Donal Ryah manages to bring his character so vividly alive in the page, it follows the life of the Aylward women. The relationship between the different generation of women is remarkable and heartwarming, the love and loyalty they have for each other through everything life throws at them is wonderful to feel part of while reading about them, I especially loved the relationship between Mary & Eileen. A wonderful read.

Opening with a beginning and an end, The Queen of Dirt Island follows four generations of women in one unconventional household, all devoted to each other in their own particular ways.

Left to bring up her daughter alone, Eileen Aylward becomes so close to her mother-in-law that Nana moves in with her and Saoirse when one son marries and the other lands in prison. Saoirse loves the background banter between the two women, growing up straining her ears to catch the whispered gossip Nana can’t resist.. She’s a happy girl not especially popular until one of the cool crowd picks her out with tragic and unexpected results. When Josh Underwood appears along with his girlfriend, a friendship is struck that offers Saoirse an intimacy she’s never known before. Eileen and Nana continue their litany of affectionate insult until Nana slips into an inevitable decline.

Ryan’s novel gently unfolds his story in short, snapshot chapters interpolating the occasional punchy shock, moving it in a different direction to the one readers might have expected. His writing is as mellifluously elegant as ever, his story expertly spun with a pleasing thread of humour running through it. The Queen of Dirt Island shares the same setting as Strange Flowers characters from which become bound closely into the Aylwards’ story. Ryan has an ability to paint the universal on a small canvas, evoking an intimacy which draws us into this characters’ world. I loved it and am hoping to meet the Aylward women again some time.

I was so excited to be given this book to review and my excitement was certainly justified. From the first word of the novel, Donal Ryan's writing transports me to a small town in rural Ireland. The characters are so beautifully complete that I feel I know them personally. Three generations of women - Nana, Eileen and Saoirse, loving each other, fighting each other, keeping secrets from each other. But inextricably linked in the way that mothers and daughters inevitably are. Some characters from previous books make an appearance, and I was pleased to see them again.It is a book written with a great understanding and empathy for women. As Eileen commented to a kitchen full of women, 'Aren't we the queerest coven that ever stirred a pot? .'
Donal Ryan writing invites us to bathe in the peculiarities of Irish culture. His love of the language.of Ireland is simply magical. and always evokes in me a feeling of pride that a writer of his calibre writes about a land and people that I recognise

I really enjoyed this book. It was well written with powerfully beautiful narrative, a compelling sotyrline and well developed characters which honestly was the best part of the book for me they were incredibly well developed. This was such an engaging read that I found it really hard to put down.

Donal Ryan’s The Queen of Dirt Island takes us back to the small community in Nenagh, focusing this time on three generations of Aylward women. Mary and Eileen, whose camaraderie has endured a lifetime, live with Eileen’s daughter Saoirse in a small estate at the foot of farming land. Their harmony is interrupted time on time by unexpected events, but life’s patterns are usually re-established handy enough. But when Kit Gladney’s ‘prodigal’ grandson Josh and his girlfriend Honey return to the village, the waves they make feel more like a storm.
Donal Ryan has a gift for bringing his characters, with their colourful gritty dialogue, to life. I confess to having worried that the first part of The Queen of Dirt Island felt like manys a come-all-ye, up until the incident at the farm pond. Then the very feet were swept from under me, and after a short break to recover, all I could do from there until the end was simply marvel at the power of this writer.
With thanks to Netgalley UK and Random House UK, Transworld publishers