Press Releases

THE GLORIOUS HERESIES wins the 2016 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction

The novel will be published in the U.S. on August 9 by Tim Duggan Books

*WINNER OF THE 2016 BAILEYS WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION*

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE*

*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2016 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE*

UK Praise for The Glorious Heresies

“Sound the trumpets. Or perhaps the harp. The Glorious Heresies heralds the arrival of a glorious, foul-mouthed, fizzing new talent.” —The Sunday Times

“A spectacular debut . . . Tough and tender, gothic and lyrical, it is a head-spinning, stomach-churning, state-of-the-nation novel about a nation falling apart.” —The Telegraph

“There is no question that McInerney has talent to burn.” —The Guardian

“An accomplished, seriously enjoyable, and high-octane morality tale, full of empathy, feeling, and soul.” —The Irish Times

“This is a rich, touching, hilarious novel.” —The Financial Times

“A blisteringly good debut which manifests the true coming of a brilliant new energy in Irish fiction.” —Belinda McKeon, author of Tender

“This is a daring, exuberant, and generous novel. And a work to which you will want—eagerly—to return.” —The Observer

“A gripping and often riotously funny tale . . . McInerney gives us a memorable cast that are tough as nails, savagely articulate, and helplessly human.” —Colin Barrett, author of Young Skins

“Comparisons with early Irvine Welsh, Roddy Doyle, Alan Warner, or the plays of Martin McDonagh all stand up. . . McInerney also joins the vanguard of an exciting new wave of young Irish writers.” —Metro

“Totally and unmistakably the real deal.” —Kevin Barry, author of Beatlebone and City of Bohane

“A real stunner; a wild ride of a read.” —Donal Ryan, author of The Spinning Heart

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Lisa McInerney has been hailed as “arguably the most talented writer at work in Ireland today” (The Irish Times) and her arresting debut novel, THE GLORIOUS HERESIES (August 9, 2016; Tim Duggan Books), set in the shadowy landscape of the Cork criminal underworld, arrives in the United States on a wave of stunning international acclaim, including raves in the Telegraph, Sunday Times, Observer, and more. McInerney’s short stories have been featured on BBC Radio 4, in The Stinging Fly, and in the anthologies The Long Gaze Back and Faber’s Town and Country. She is also the author of an award-winning blog about working-class life in a council estate, and she lives in Galway with her husband and daughter.

In this gritty, darkly comic novel, McInerney crafts a twisted web of shifting loyalties and betrayals while interrogating notions of salvation, shame, and the legacy of Ireland’s past attitudes towards sex and family. She quietly explores money, violence, and the unbreakable bonds we form with each other through the story of one accidental murder and its rippling effects on five people who exist on the fringes of Ireland’s post-crash society.

Maureen, the unapologetic murderer of an interloper in her kitchen, has returned to Cork after forty years in exile to discover that Jimmy, the son she was forced to give up years before, has grown into the most feared gangster in the city. One of his henchmen, Tony, is an alcoholic whose obsession with his unhinged next-door neighbor threatens to ruin him and his family—including his son, Ryan, a fifteen-year-old drug dealer desperate to forge a new life for himself and his beloved girlfriend. And Georgie, a prostitute and former girlfriend of the man Maureen murdered, decides to look into his disappearance, with dangerous repercussions. In seeking atonement for the murder and a multitude of other perceived sins from her past, Maureen threatens to destroy everything her son has worked to build and bring the intertwined lives of the Irish underworld into the spotlight.

Written with McInerney’s unmistakable voice and undeniable heart (and enough violence to rival playwright Martin McDonagh), THE GLORIOUS HERESIES shines a light on the darkest corners of contemporary Ireland and still manages to find good in people, regardless of profession or place in society. Biting, candid, and darkly funny, THE GLORIOUS HERESIES marks the arrival of one of the most original new voices in contemporary fiction, a book whose lyrical prose and expansive, generous vision instantly establish it as a classic of Irish literature.

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