Glorious indeed - such incredible portrayals of complex people, stories and histories, interweaved masterfully together to create an arc

I am in charge of our Senior School library and now during this time of lockdown, I am looking for a diverse array of new books to furnish their shelves with and inspire our young people to read a wider and more diverse range of books as they move through the senior school. It is hard sometimes to find books that will grab the attention of young people as their time is short and we are competing against technology and online entertainments.
This was a thought-provoking and well-written read that will appeal to readers across the board. It had a really strong voice and a compelling narrative that I think would capture their attention and draw them in. It kept me engrossed and I think that it's so important that the books that we purchase for both our young people and our staff are appealing to as broad a range of readers as possible - as well as providing them with something a little 'different' that they might not have come across in school libraries before.
This was a really enjoyable read and I will definitely be purchasing a copy for school so that our young people can enjoy it for themselves. A satisfying and well-crafted read that I keep thinking about long after closing its final page - and that definitely makes it a must-buy for me!

I would like to thank John Murray Press and Lisa McInerney for my copy of the ARC. Due to this kind gesture, I have decided to leave an honest review.

I wanted to love this book due to it being on the Baileys' Women's Prize for Fiction 2016. After all, women have to support women. Unfortunately, I didn't find it as witty and darkly funny as I thought I would. At times I found it messy and a bit strained.

There are so many characters in the book I am trying to work out the need for them all. At times it felt like they were there just to fill up the pages. This made it hard for me to connect with any the characters so I didn't care for much of what was going on.

The book sounds like it will be exicting. All these crazy characters, but really what did it amount to?

Maybe this just wasn't my bag as its not the type of book I'm used to reading!

All an all it just wasn't for me I'm afraid.

2 stars!

I adored this story. I fell in love with all so many characters. They are all so real and raw,flawed but oh so perfect because of this fact. I loved the pace of the story and how each character is connected is some way. I adore Ireland,and I think that the setting and how very Irish everyone is helped me really connect with this story. An absolute five star read,and I believe my favourite read of 2019 so far.

The book begins with a messy murder; Maureen kills a stranger while he is breaking into her home, which then involves her gangster son to help clean it up. Enter a whole range of characters - teenage drug dealers, prostitutes, nosy neighbours. The story jumps from character to character with an awful lot of plot. The author writes with such a fresh voice and with grit and humour. I would be really intrigued to read more by Lisa McInerney.

I put off reading this as the subject matter sounded too depressing and upsetting - so glad I finally got around to it. It is set in a dark and depressing world of drugs, violence, poverty and prostitution, but somehow the characters shine out with real humanity. The writing is very good. Ryan in particular is an incredible character that frustrates us, makes us laugh, makes us cry, but we can see his vulnerability and his pain. I loved the first half of the book but did find the second half a bit slower, not so much pace. However, I can now see why it won prizes. Not for the faint-hearted but well worth the effort.

This is a wonderfully stark novel and so deserving of the (former) Bailey's Prize. Very grateful to have been given the chance to read this.

I resisted reading this book, even though it won prizes, including the one for Women’s Fiction, a couple of years ago. I confess the cover art on one edition put me off and also reading descriptions like ‘visceral’ and ‘gritty’ are usually enough to have me scanning the other books on the shelf. When NetGalley offered a copy, though, I took the chance and was bowled over.

‘Gritty’ it is indeed, ‘visceral’ not so much, so I was happy with that. Yes, people come to grief and we see the underbelly of the city of Cork close up (drug addicts, prostitutes, drunks, gangsters - blighted lives all) but the author makes it all so entertaining. How does she do that? She has a talent for dialogue and a wit to die for. She takes broad swipes at religion and social convention, never laying any judgement on those whose lives are determined by the times and circumstances they are born into. Great structure means that all the characters and their stories intertwine in a way that doesn’t seem at all contrived, just the way it is in a small town, and I loved that the two characters I found most engaging come together at the end in a surprising way and with a tantalising hint at what the future might hold for them.

Hardly any need now that there are so many great reviews out there, not to mention prizes won, but I couldn’t recommend this book more highly.

This story is too dark. I didn't like the writing style, but it is contemporary and uncompromising, just not for me. I don't like rating books I haven't finished but as it is a requirement I have settled on two stars to acknowledge the writing skill.

It has been a few days since I finished reading this book and I often catch myself thinking about the fantastic and complex characters created by Lisa McInerney. The prose is powerful and the scene in which Maureen goes to confession is one of the best things I have ever read. A really impressive debut.

(Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy!)

Last week start with a book which has been on my radar for a long time – The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney. A mix of the cover, the description and reviews have kept my attention since it first came out so, when I saw that it was available for review on NetGalley, I went for it. The book follows the lives of five people in Ireland whose lives become intertwined. It delves into the belly of the streets’ darker sides, exploring the worlds of drug-dealers, gang leaders and prostitutes while also staying true to the themes of family, religion and circumstance. I did struggle with some of the language used in the novel, and there were a number of italicised sections which I did not understand the reason for but, having read the story, they do mean I will easily get more out of a second, or even third read. McInerney certainly has a talent with writing and she wields it unashamedly in this novel.

A surprise hit! My family is from County Cork and the voice and language and sense of place in this book is spot on. I loved the dark humour even as I was dreading the gradual unfolding and impending doom of the unfolding relationships. A very impressive first novel.

It’s not one I would have chosen for myself, but I was tempted by an email. I didn’t find the style or subject matter appealed from the get-go and didn’t get very far. Not for me.

A gloriously moving, blackly comic, filthy and vibrant story from the award winning Lisa McInerney set in the rough port city of Cork in Ireland. 15 year old drug dealer Ryan Cusack has no intention of being anything like his violent and alcoholic dad, Tony, and he is mad for Karine, and wonder of wonders, she likes him. There is the unspeakable horror that is the larger than life neighbour. Maureen Phelan is the mother of Jimmy, the king of the criminal underbelly of Cork, and finds herself committing the unintended murder of an unfortunate intruder. The mess created by the dead body needs cleaning up, for which Jimmy plans to hire Tony to help him. The murder sets off a series of consequences that bring mayhem and danger to a number of characters. You cannot have a book set in Ireland without reference to the Catholic Church, there is Georgia, a prostitute who finds religion while McInerney adroitly reveals the hypocrisies of the church. Essentially, this is tale of sex, drugs, alcohol, crime and religion, and delivered with such panache with its 'in your face' earthy and gritty style.

McInerney creates a cracking set of unbelievably complex and charismatic characters, not all are likeable, but you cannot help but find them desperately compelling. This book is not likely to appeal to readers who are easily shocked, but for the rest of us, this an outstanding, unmissable and wildly irreverent read of a group of people in search of redemption. The beautiful and intense prose, often lyrical, is a real joy. A simply brilliant novel that comes highly recommended! Many thanks to John Murray Press for an ARC.

I gathered up this one at Grrrl Con a few weeks ago, after no fewer than five people had told me how wonderful it was. When one of them compared it to Trainspotting, I did have my doubts (I abandoned that a third of the way through when I tried it aged seventeen) but I pushed them aside. Irish fiction is a big thing in America – well, this is a world away from that. Lisa McInerney is famous for her blog The Arse End of Ireland (there’s no hyperlink there because she got rid of the site for becoming too cumbersome – there are days when I completely understand what she means!) – the topic of this site was how the recession had hit the country and specifically how life is rather different in the non-picture postcard areas of the city. We’re a world away from Ballykissangel.

The novel opens with a bang – or rather a wallop – as Maureen takes down an intruder with the closest object to hand which just so happens to be a Holy Stone. She’s newly returned to Cork, having been exiled for four decades in London after having a child, Jimmy, out of wedlock – and indeed she had to count herself lucky that she was just young enough to miss out in lifelong incarceration in one of the Magdalene Laundries. The child Jimmy is all grown up now though and has hauled his mother back over the water because that’s what families do – they don’t leave their mothers living in poverty. Of course, he’s also the meanest gangster in Cork so while he is able to step up and help her dispose of the inconvenient body, he’s not exactly thrilled about all the fuss.

Wandering into the mayhem is Tony Cusack, an erstwhile associate of Jimmy and long-term drunk. It’s just his bad luck that he happened to be walking along the street when Jimmy was standing outside wondering what to do, so he finds himself flagged down and ordered to help clear up the mess. While all this is going on, his eldest son fifteen year-old Ryan is becoming a man, having managed to bag the most popular beautiful girl in the year Karine and now she’s back at his house and about to get into bed with him. Ryan’s bedroom is still festooned with his younger siblings toys and has football posters on the wall, but he is wanting to grasp at adulthood, to get away from his drunken violent father through whatever means necessary. To start with, he’s selling drugs on the street.

Then there’s poor Georgie, who ran away from home at fifteen and fell in with Robbie Donovan who speedily took her virginity and almost as quickly put her on to prostitution. Georgie isn’t quite sure where the last five years went but now that he’s completely vanished, she’s not sure whether she’s happy or sad about it. But where are her drugs going to come from now? Georgie is unaware that Robbie is the luckless idiot who came off the worse for wear from Maureen’s Holy Stone but the reader does – and so does Tony, who used to be a drinking buddy. The bad fairy for all of the characters is Tara Duane, whose motivations are never clear but who appears to exist solely to cause trouble – telling Georgie to ask Tony where Robbie is, trying to get Jimmy to let her try out being a madam, then asking Ryan into the house while he waits for his Dad to calm down and telling Tony exactly what is on Ryan’s mobile phone.

lisa mcinerneyThe novel sounds unbearably bleak in summation but instead it is witty and razor sharp, a book packed full of characters eyeing each other with bleary cynicism and with an angry riposte ready at hand. McInerney is an incredibly talented writer but she also has a real empathy for her characters. There is a real tenderness to Ryan and Karine’s relationship and to its tragedy as Ryan casts aside the softer sides of himself – his surprising and incongruous love for piano – in favour of a tougher image, reinventing himself as a DJ as he grows older. Their love is able to endure Ryan’s first prison sentence but the intensity of their teenage love loses its sweetness over time, with Ryan silently acknowledging that they had had something beautiful which is now spoiled.

Much of the novel also portrays a fierce criticism concerning the wrongs inflicted on Ireland by the church – and although the Catholic variety comes in for its fair share of blame, McInerney is equally angry towards other denominations too. Georgie is gathered up off the street by a community of Christians who claim to offer absolution and salvation but who are never able to give her the tools to take care of herself and whose judgment over her past life always hovers over her like a cloud. In a strange turn of events, Maureen decides to take revenge on the church via arson, the logic of which baffles even Jimmy. Visiting a ruined Magdalene laundry, Maureen is full of rage at how her life has turned out, confessing to the baffled priest, ‘ The most natural thing in the world is giving birth; you built your whole religion around it. And yet you poured pitch on girls like me and sold us into slavery and took our humanity from us.’

This is like the literary version of the song Take Me To Church, yet McInerney’s fury is not so much at God but at his instruments on Earth who have caused so much pain to their fellow man. Maureen begs Jimmy to spare Georgie, wanting to offer the misguided girl salvation but McInerney makes it clear how difficult it is to save another – this is not a novel that ends with a simple redemption, indeed its plot often appears secondary to its characters. The Glorious Heresies is a whirlpool of a novel, full of characters competing to be heard and each of whom are fighting against the tide. It is unapologetic, unabashed and unrepentant – but it is also honest. Ireland is such a political football of a nation, all of the world has an opinion on what it means to be Irish but here McInerney is peaking for the real people of her country, those who have never said “Top o’ the Morning” in their lives and who the tourist industry would rather pretend never existed.

I'll be completely honest, I wouldn't have picked up this book if it hadn't won the Bailey's prize. The cover doesn't grab me? Or, more accurately, it doesn't reflect the type of novel I would usually read. That said, I am glad I did choose to read it.

This is a violent tragicomedy which draws you in. It's dark and gritty and genuinely laugh out loud funny. Someone compared it to Where'd You Go Bernadette - not because they are at all similar, but because they occupy a similar place on your TBR pile. Does that make sense? An "easy" read, but still a literary one - fun but not fodder. Maybe that is more a reflection on me, as I am known to be fond of the more "harrowing" reads...!