Wild Houses
A Novel
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 BOOKER PRIZE • Longlisted for the 2025 Dublin Literary Award • One of The Guardian’s Best Books of the Summer and Best Fiction of 2024 • One of the Globe and Mail's most anticipated books of 2024 • Named a Best Book of 2024 by the New York Times
From the award-winning writer of Homesickness and Young Skins, a darkly funny and deeply moving debut novel about crimes of desperation, dreams abandoned, and small-town secrets that won’t stay buried.
As Ballina in the west of Ireland prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, the simmering feud between small-time dealer Cillian English and County Mayo's fraternal enforcers, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, spills over into violence and an ugly ultimatum.
When the reclusive Dev answers his door on Friday night, he finds Doll—Cillian's bruised, sullen, teenage brother—in the clutches of Gabe and Sketch. Jostled by his nefarious cousins, goaded by his dead mother's dog, and struck by spinning lights, Dev is unwillingly drawn headlong into the Ferdias' revenge fantasy.
Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Nicky can't shake the feeling something bad has happened to her boyfriend Doll. Hungover, reeling from a fractious Friday night, and plagued by ghosts of her own, Nicky sets out on a feverish mission to save Doll, even as she questions her future in Ballina.
The beautifully crafted, thrillingly-told story of two outsiders striving to find themselves as their worlds collapse in chaos and violence, Wild Houses is the long-anticipated debut novel from award-winning and critically-acclaimed short story writer, Colin Barrett.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Barrett's splendid debut novel (after the collection Homesickness) wraps a taut crime story around a fascinating set of character studies. In County Mayo, Ireland, 20-something Dev Hendrick has an agreement with Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, weed-dealing brothers who stash their product at his late mother's house. His loyalty is tested after the Ferdias show up with a teen named Donal "Doll" English, whom they've kidnapped and expect Dev to shelter until they receive an overdue payment from Doll's older brother. Barrett replays the night of Doll's capture and following three days of captivity in alternating perspectives, primarily Dev's and that of Nicky Hennigan, Doll's girlfriend who was with him at the party from which he disappeared after they had a drunken fight. Nicky, a 17-year-old bartender with plans to go to college, assumes Doll abandoned her, and vacillates from concern to anger as she wonders if there's room in her future for him. As Doll pleads with Dev to let him go, and after Nicky learns of Doll's predicament, Barrett maps the contours of their inner worlds in dizzying and richly textured detail. Even as Barrett ramps up the suspense, the reader has little doubt as to who these characters really are. This is a knockout.
