A NEW STATESMAN READ-ALL-ABOUT-IT SELECTION FOR 2012
A BARNES & NOBLE DISCOVER GREAT NEW AUTHORS PICK, 2012
AN AMAZON.CA EDITOR'S PICK FOR 2012
A LARGEHEARTED BOY FAVORITE NOVEL OF 2012
"A caustic, funny and moving fantasia of an Irish mammy going round the bend."
?Emma Donoghue, author of ROOM
Our Woman will not be sunk by what life's about to serve her. She's caught her son doing unmentionable things out by the barn. She's been accosted by Red the Twit, who claims to have done things with Our Woman's husband that could frankly have gone without mentioning. And now her son's gone and joined the army, and Our Woman has found a young fella to do unmentionable things with herself, just so she might understand it all...
Malarky is the story of an Irish mother forced to look grief in the eye, and of a wife come face-to-face with the mad agony of longing. Comic, moving, eccentric, and spare, Anakana Schofield's debut novel introduces a brilliant new voice in contemporary fiction.
Further Praise for Malarky
"This is the story of Anakana Schofield's teapot-wielding 'Our Woman': fretful mother, disgruntled farmwife, and?surprisingly late in life?sexual outlaw/anthropologist. Everything about this primly raunchy, uproarious novel is unexpected?each draught poured from the teapot marks another moment of pure literary audacity."
?Lynn Coady, author of The Antagonist
"Anyone bold enough to name her book after a word so loaded deserves our attention. In Malarky Schofield pulls her long line tight?and lets go when we least expect it."?Michael Turner, author of Hard Core Logo
"Malarky spins and glitters like a coin flipped in the air?now 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
Anakana Schofield is an Irish Canadian writer of fiction, drama, essays, and criticism. She contributes to the London Review of Books and The Globe and Mail (among others). She has lived in London, Dublin, and Vancouver; Malarky is her first novel.
