Today, it’s with great pride that we announce that Lisa McInerney’s The Glorious Heresies has won the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction!
Though this book won’t be released in the US until August 9th, this book has already created quite a stir in McInerney’s native Ireland, as well around the UK. It’s a tale of an accidental murder and the result that act has on the lives of its four protagonists, who include a 15-year-old drug dealer, his alcoholic father, a prostitute and a gangland boss. The book is about as far away from the Disneyland Ireland that so many books depict, and probably much closer to the real underbelly of modern Irish society than many would like to admit, but for all that, it’s a wonderfully, darkly funny book that is wonderfully creative, and deeply courageous.
McInerney noted how often she was told her book sounded “male”. As quoted by The Guardian, she replied to this, “I’m still not entirely sure why. Was it because it had a certain boisterousness, when women are best suited to gentle pursuits, like embroidery? Did it seem too sweary, when women’s voices are made for arias and whispered gossip?…In celebrating women’s writing, the Baileys prize does something great. It gives us a roadmap for a space where books by women writers exist as part of a sweeping, chaotic and beautiful literary landscape, where they are allowed to just be”. And we can’t wait for McInerney’s book to be a part of our Library soon!
So, on that note, let’s see what other books have made their way onto our shelves this week, to help tide you over until The Glorious Heresies hits the US!
738 Days: New adult author Stacey Kade’s latest release is a harrowing and heartbreaking journey of loss–but also a deeply emotional tale of love and redemption that is getting a great deal of attention for its courage and creativity. When she was sixteen, Amanda Grace was kidnapped and held in a basement by a sexual predator for two years. Only the posted of heartthrob Chase Henry on the wall gave her something good and hopeful on which to focus until she was able to escape. Six years later, Amanda is struggling to put her past behind her, while Chase Henry himself is trying to resurrect his career after six years of drugs, alcohol, and partying. When his publicist arranges a meeting between Chase and Amanda, the results are disastrous, but the two manage to work out a deal for their mutual benefit. But when a new danger rises up, will their fragile bond be enough to save them both? Publisher’s Weekly gave this one a starred review, saying “The intense psychological drama of Amanda struggling to heal her broken spirit makes for riveting reading…Kade…drops just the right amount of humor into the mix of regret, shame, determination, and love….Readers will long remember the love story between these complex characters.”
East West Street: What began as an academic’s search for his family roots has evolved into a powerful, insightful, and moving exploration of the history of the “war crime” and the concept of “crimes against humanity”, which were developed as a result of Nazi Germany’s policies against Jews and other victim groups, as well as the sacking and pillaging of countless families’ homes during the Second World War. Through exhaustive research and a gift for storytelling, Philippe Sands tells the story of Raphael Lemkin and Hersch Lauterpacht (who developed the definition of “genocide”), and Hans Frank, Hitler’s personal lawyer, who stood in the dock at Nuremberg, being held to account for overseeing the death of some 1 million Jews from Galicia and Lemberg, among them, the families of the Sands’ grandfather’s family as well as those of Lemkin and Lauterpacht. Though not always an easy read, Kirkus Reviews found this book an incredibly important one, calling it “An engrossing tale of family secrets and groundbreaking legal precedents . . . a tense, riveting melding of memoir and history . . . From letters, photographs, and deeply revealing interviews, the author portrays Nazi persecutions in shattering detail . . . Vastly important.”
Freedom of the Mask: If you haven’t started reading Robert McCammon’s historical mystery/thriller series featuring the fascinatingly complex Matthew Corbett, official “problem solver”, then you really, really should think about starting it. It’s a wonderfully engrossing series that touches on the darker, seedier, and generally less-explored sides of early American history. In this sixth installment, Corbett has gone missing while on a mission for the Herrald Agency in Charles Town. Little does anyone guess that Matthew has been arrested, and is being held in the notorious Newgate Prison for a murder without a body (alongside one Daniel DeFoe). Though his friends are racing to his side, this case may be too big even for the great Matthew Corbett to solve. Again Publisher’s Weekly fell in love with this book, declaring “McCammon’s intricate and intersecting subplots keep the story twisting unpredictably, and he adds menace to the mayhem with hellish descriptions of London straight out of a Hogarth engraving…Fans of the series will race through this hefty page-turner to see where Matthew’s latest adventure leads him.”
The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan: Lawrence Leamer’s new book focuses on the murder of Michael Donald, a young black man who was picked up by two members of the Ku Klux Klan in Mobile, Alabama in 1981. Following the investigation into Donald’s horrible death, and the conviction of those responisble, Morris Dees, civil rights lawyer and cofounder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a civil lawsuit against the members of the local Klan unit, charging them with fraud. The resulting trial shook the Klan to its very core. In this work, Leamer traces not only the trial itself, but also looks closely at the Klan, and its lingering affects on American history in a work that Kirkus Reviews calls “Powerful… engrossing… and a pertinent reminder of the consequences of organized hatred.”
The Noise of Time: The genius and bravery of Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich has been getting a lot of attention lately. Earlier this year, M.T. Anderson published a teen novel about his experiences during the Battle of Leningrad, and now acclaimed author Julian Barnes has given us this novel-in-miniature that focuses on Shostakovich beginning around the age of thirty, when he became a primary target of Stalin’s despotism. Convinced that he is about to die, Shostakovich considers not only the weight of his own life, but those of his loved ones and family–and when a stroke of luck spares him, he must face the reality of a lifetime under Soviet control. Barnes is a gifted and nuanced writer, and this study of art and the meaning of life is one that is wholly suited to his style. NPR concurs, calling this work “As elegantly constructed as a concerto . . . another brilliant thought-provoker which explores the cost of compromise and how much confrontation and concession a man and his conscience can endure.”
Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!