Malarky

" Malarkyspins and glitters like a coin flipped in the airnow searingly tragic, now blackly funny. The language is joyful and exuberant, the characters thoughtful and deeply felt. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant."Annabel Lyon "Good writing and dark wit always excite me and they come together thrillingly in this book. It has a quiet grip on the strangeness of the interior and exterior worlds of love and politics. I delighted in the writing and the scope."Jenny Diski With Malarky, Anakana Schofield has delivered a character as extraordinary as Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage, and a domestic situation that rivals Samuel Beckett's Endgamefor its stagnant and sorrowful absurdity. Our Woman Philomena has just caught her son in the fields with another man. She's been accosted by Red the Twit, who energetically discloses the infidelitiesreal, imagined, or in any event peculiarof Our Woman's husband. Swamped by a confusion she refuses to let overcome her, Philomena embarks on a rural odyssey that skirts madness, passes through grief, and returns her to the remarkable resilience of spirit that will make Our Woman the character of the decade. Schofield's wicked humor is everywhere apparent, and Malarky, brilliantly drawn in the cadences of contemporary Ireland, is an absolutely peerless tour-de-force. Anakana Schofieldis an Irish Canadian writer of fiction, drama, essays, and criticism. She contributes to the London Review of Booksand The Globe and Mail(among others). She has lived in London, Dublin, and Vancouver; Malarkyis her first novel.