'Characters are compelling and vividly drawn, the dialogue is profane and frequently hilarious. Ryan, this very fine novel concludes on a note of sweetness and, also, in this case, triumph.” - Wall Street Journal Further, as we have come to expect from Mr. Saoirse’s shades of emotion and thought are poignantly true to life, recognizable, and perfectly conveyed. Ryan’s treatment of Saoirse: I do not know of another male writer who has so perfectly captured the experiences and thoughts of a woman as he has. Ryan has his own emotional range and a way of capturing the largeness of what look like tiny lives but aren’t .” - The Washington Post

there’s as much implicit wisdom in these pages about how to live as how to write. “Donal Ryan’s The Queen of Dirt Island is a little Irish miracle. The Queen of Dirt Island gives the women their due, and the reader is rewarded.” - Amy Bloom, The New York Times Book Review Ryan’s book is a celebration, in an embroidered, unrestrained, joyful, aphoristic and sometimes profane style, of both. “If language - lyric, lovely and funny, steeped in County Tipperary - and women (men come and go, rarely center a chapter and are often useless, sometimes cruel) are of no interest to you, The Queen of Dirt Island is not your next read. The Queen of Dirt Island is an uplifting celebration of fierce, loyal love and the powerful stories that bind generations together. Of all the things family can be and all the things it sometimes isn’t. It’s a story of terrible betrayals and fierce loyalties, of isolation and togetherness, of transgression, forgiveness, desire, and love. It involves wives and widows, gunrunners and gougers, sinners and saints. Their story begins at an end and ends at a beginning. You’d have to know them to know that-in spite of what the neighbors might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes-their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world. The Aylward women of Nenagh, Tipperary, are mad about each other, but you wouldn’t always think it.

'This is a generous mosaic of a novel about the staying power of love and pride and history and family.' –Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon and Let The Great World Spinįrom the multi-award-winning and internationally bestselling author Donal Ryan, a searing, jubilant story about four generations of women and fierce love The three generations of Aylward women will break your heart and then put it back together again.” –Maggie O'Farrell “From its opening pages, this book exerts a quiet, propulsive hold over its reader.

The Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan