Mary O’Hara is a sharp and cheeky 12-year-old Dublin schoolgirl who is bravely facing the fact that her beloved Granny is dying. But Granny can’t let go of life, and when a mysterious young woman turns up in Mary’s street with a message for her Granny, Mary gets pulled into an unlikely adventure. The woman is the ghost of Granny’s own mother, who has come to help her daughter say good-bye to her loved ones and guide her safely out of this world. She needs the help of Mary and her mother, Scarlett, who embark on a road trip to the past. Four generations of women travel on a midnight car journey. One of them is dead, one of them is dying, one of them is driving, and one of them is just starting out.
About Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyle is the author of nine novels. He won the Man Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. His novels have been made into popular films, including The Commitments and The Snapper. He lives and works in Dublin, Ireland.
Editorial Review
That’s four generations of Irish women, all whirling about in some state of consciousness or another, and it’s enough to make Mary dizzy. Mary is a cheeky girl, like many almost-teenagers, but she’s level-headed enough to embrace the ghostly visits from her great-grandmother Tansey, who looks young but “talks old” because she died at age 25 in 1928. Tansey’s spirit is sticking around for her dying daughter, Mary’s granny, to reassure her “it’ll all be grand” in the great beyond and, as it turns out, to join her family for one last tearful, mirthful midnight road trip. Doyle divides up the novel by character, giving readers first-hand glimpses into the nature of each woman through time. In a lovely, lilting Irish dialect, he deftly explores the common threads of their lives through story and memory, from family-owned racing greyhounds to the traumatic dropping of an egg. On the subject of mortality, Mary says, “…it just seems mean.” Her mother agrees. “It does seem mean. Especially when it’s someone you love.” Indeed. – Kirkus Reviews
‘A Greyhound of a Girl’ by Roddy Doyle
The Washington Post Book Review – September 4, 2012 (Excerpt)
Several years ago, the Irish writer Roddy Doyle published a children’s picture book called “Her Mother’s Face.” It told the story of a girl whose mother is dead and who lives in a desolate world with her bereaved father. The child is comforted by a mysterious stranger — an emissary from the afterlife, perhaps, or a figment of her imagination — and grows up to have a daughter of her own. Now, in a book for all ages titled “A Greyhound of a Girl,” Doyle revisits this theme of childhood loss and matriarchal consolation.
Mary O’Hara is 12 and cheeky. She lives in Dublin with her mother, father and two teenage brothers who are “boring and weird.” Mary’s best friend has left the neighborhood, her grandmother is dying in the hospital, and Mary fears that her childhood, too, is slipping away. One afternoon, she meets an oddly antique woman who seems to know her dying granny. When the stranger’s identity is revealed, Mary realizes that “her world was suddenly full of the dead and the dying, people she loved and people she was supposed to love.” The cocky girl is suddenly angry and afraid. “You look like your granny and I look like mine,” she snaps at her mother. “So what, like? Your granny is a ghost and mine is dying. And that’s the only thing that isn’t stupid.” [Read the full article...]
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THE BLEEDING HILLS A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss
I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith. - 2 Timothy iv. 7
The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]
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THE BLEEDING HILLS
