![]() His decision to break the book up into short parts, though, can make the characters and their story feel distant. ![]() The outwardly contentious but deeply loving relationship between Eileen and Mary feels particularly true to life. Ryan, who tells his story in brief, impressionistic chapters, is a gifted prose stylist and has a particular talent for capturing the language and rhythm of dialogue. After she becomes a mother, Saoirse’s world expands when she meets Josh, a young writer with whom she embarks on a romance once his girlfriend leaves town. ![]() But nothing changes Saoirse’s life as much as a surprise teenage pregnancy. As Saoirse grows up, her family’s life becomes more complex, with her mother drawn into conflicts with her estranged family and her paternal uncles pursuing marriage and the IRA. Saoirse is essentially co-parented, instead, by her paternal grandmother, Mary, a brassy woman who also becomes Eileen’s closest friend. ![]() This short novel from Ryan, whose previous books have twice been longlisted for the Booker Prize, charts the early life of Saoirse Aylward, a much-loved child of the fierce Eileen and a father who died in a car wreck days after her birth. The daughter of a single mother grows up in a family of formidable women in rural Ireland. ![]()
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