Eggshells
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- 7,49 €
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- 7,49 €
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE ROONEY PRIZE 2018
A modern Irish literary gem for anyone who has felt like the odd one out.
‘Inventive, funny and, ultimately, moving’ GUARDIAN
‘Wildly funny’ THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
‘Beguiling’ THE IRISH TIMES
‘Delightfully quirky’ THE IRISH INDEPENDENT
Vivian is an oddball.
An unemployed orphan living in the house of her recently deceased great aunt in North Dublin, Vivian boldly goes through life doing things in her own peculiar way, whether that be eating blue food, cultivating ‘her smell’, wishing people happy Christmas in April, or putting an ad up for a friend called Penelope to check why it doesn’t rhyme with antelope. But behind her heroic charm and undeniable logic, something isn’t right. With each attempt to connect with a stranger or her estranged sister doomed to misunderstanding, someone should ask: is Vivian OK?
A poignant and delightful story of belonging that plays with the myth of the Changeling and takes us by the hand through Dublin. A poetic call for us all to accept each other and find the Vivian within.
About the author
CAITRIONA LALLY studied English Literature in Trinity College Dublin. She has had a colorful employment history, working as an abstract writer and a copywriter, as well as a home helper in New York and an English teacher in Japan. She has traveled extensively around Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and South America. Caitriona was shortlisted for “Newcomer of the Year” in the Irish Book Awards in 2015.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this whimsical debut novel, Lally chronicles the wanderings of Vivian, a lonely woman who believes herself to be a fairy whose days are spent searching Dublin for the "thin places" that might return her home, "portals to another world." In between these outings she visits with her friend Penelope, whom she meets after posting an advertisement for someone of that name in hopes of figuring out "why she doesn't rhyme with antelope," and her straightlaced sister, who, as Vivian observes, "copes better with her own words than with mine." Words, in fact, are Vivian's primary concern. She makes lists of eccentric names to write in her "notebook of certainties" and muses about having the letter K abolished ("a good C' or a double CC' would do nicely"). As Vivian's inquiries about a door to Oz or Hades are met by strangers who blink in response like they have "just come out of the cinema into the sunlight," Lally's charmingly droll prose takes on a desperate edge. Having suffered a parade of predictable disappointments, Vivian is no closer to fitting in than she began, and her greatest fantasy is as commonplace as eliciting a laugh over drinks with friends. "They're bent double and drink is pouring out their noses," she imagines, "but that is just the start of my jokes, there are more."
