Mouthing

Sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued, a multi-generational portrait of life in rural Ireland from a bracing new talent in literary fiction

Welcome to Ballyrowan. This sleepy corner of Ireland may seem tranquil but scratch the surface and you'll find a hotbed of gossip and intrigue - endless material for mouthing - and a town full of people only too happy to oblige in spreading the bad news.

Narrated by several generations of villagers, Mouthing traces the misadventures of one small community from the mid-20th century to the early 21st in a series of highly confessional, darkly humorous, sharply observed monologues. These are people who delight in twisting the knife, perfecting the art of schadenfreude over many decades. And, it becomes clear, none of them are entirely reliable witnesses. As each one tells their version of events, revealing contradictory versions of 'the truth', we see how feuds are passed down through the generations, how families are estranged or reunited and fortunes made or lost, how strict social expectations can shift and loosen over time (and how some things remain stubbornly unchanged).

Mouthing is an acerbic, unsentimental love letter to rural Ireland, where everyone knows everyone else's business and everyone has an opinion on it - where 'community' is both a lifeboat and a life sentence.