The Woman’s Daughter

A classic Bolger novel, following the lives of three women.

Set in the grimy backstreets and suburbs of Dublin. Bolger has often used a woman’s voice to tell his story, and this novel is no exception; we follow the lives of three women – a Victorian maid, a young woman brought up in the 1960s (the product of a violent family) and that young woman’s daughter, the child of an incestuous relationship, hidden away from sight.

Reviews

‘A master storyteller.’ Irish Times

‘Polished, poetic style…an impressive demonstration of how the suppressed past can be deciphered by a knowing, or imaginative, eye.’ Independent on Sunday

‘[The] destruction of the small by the large, the particular by the general, is the underlying theme of Dermot Bolger's dark, erotic novel.’ Irish Independent

‘One of the essential Irish novels, certainly of the decade, and possibly of many another.’ Sunday Tribune

‘“The Woman’s Daughter” is filled with characters who are the people who have been written out of history. Bolger’s work is an attempt to construct a history for them, an unofficial history, a preservation of the memory of wasted lives so that they may not, in the end, be in vain.’ Sunday Tribune

About the author

Dermot Bolger is the author of seven other novels, many plays and several volumes of poetry. He devised, edited and co-wrote the bestselling collaborative novel Finbar’s Hotel, and its sequel Ladies’ Night at Finbar’s Hotel. He is also the editor of the New Picador Book of Contemporary Irish Fiction.