![]() Cate Quinn, a journalist for a London-based fashion magazine, returns home to her family in County Derry to break some news she knows will be upsetting to those she loves, in particular her widowed mother. The story is set in the space of one week in the early 1990s (the blurb suggests that it is before the start of the IRA ceasefire in 1994, but I could not find an actual date anywhere in the text). If you can forgive the horrendous cover art of my edition (see above), this is a perfect introduction to both Madden’s work (it’s her fifth novel) and how the religious and political turmoil of Northern Ireland had long-lasting impacts on normal, hard-working rural families inadvertently caught up in the conflict. But that was not the first of Madden’s novels to be shortlisted: One by One in the Darkness, penned 13 years ago, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 1997 (losing out to Anne Michael’s Fugitive Pieces). ![]() ![]() Many of you may be familiar with Deirdre Madden’s most recent novel, Molly Fox’s Birthday, which was shortlisted for last year’s Orange Prize. ![]() Fiction – paperback Faber and Faber 181 pages 1997. ![]()
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