If language — lyric, lovely and funny, steeped in County Tipperary — and women (men come and go, rarely center a chapter and are often useless, sometimes cruel) are of no interest to you, The Queen of Dirt Island is not your next read. Ryan’s book is a celebration, in an embroidered, unrestrained, joyful, aphoristic and sometimes profane style, of both . . . The Queen of Dirt Island gives the women their due, and the reader is rewarded.” — Amy Bloom, The New York Times Book Review
“Donal Ryan’s The Queen of Dirt Island is a little Irish miracle . . . there’s as much implicit wisdom in these pages about how to live as how to write . . . Ryan has his own emotional range and a way of capturing the largeness of what look like tiny lives but aren’t . . .”— The Washington Post
“As for Mr. Ryan’s treatment of Saoirse: I do not know of another male writer who has so perfectly captured the experiences and thoughts of a woman as he has. Saoirse’s shades of emotion and thought are poignantly true to life, recognizable, and perfectly conveyed. Further, as we have come to expect from Mr. Ryan, this very fine novel concludes on a note of sweetness and, also, in this case, triumph.” — Wall Street Journal
"Characters are compelling and vividly drawn, the dialogue is profane and frequently hilarious ... the prose drips like honey off a spoon" –The Sunday Times (London)
“From its opening pages, this book exerts a quiet, propulsive hold over its reader. The three generations of Aylward women will break your heart and then put it back together again. It’s a beautiful, compassionate novel - Donal Ryan at his inimitable best.” –Maggie O'Farrell
‘Dark and moving from one of Ireland’s most underrated talents ... lyrical, cinematic and masterful’ –The Herald (London)
"A jewel of a novel that will surely become a classic ... another triumph form a remarkable storyteller ... Ryan is a gifted storyteller with a gift for sparkling dialogue ... an enthralling and unmissable read" –The Daily Express / The Daily Mirror (London)
“Tender with comic observation … a topsy-turvy emotional rollercoaster” –The Daily Mail (London)
"Big-hearted, generous and brimful of emotion, this is a gorgeous, life-enhancing novel." –The Sunday Daily Mail (London)
"This is a generous mosaic of a novel about the staying power of love and pride and history and family. While Donal Ryan is never afraid of "all the meanness and sorrow of the world," he also manages to excavate the thrilling beauties that hold us together. He manages, with wit and grace, to illuminate the anonymous corners of human experience and get at the underworld of our souls." –Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon and Let The Great World Spin
"In gorgeous, graceful prose, Donal Ryan tells the story of four generations of women in this tender, joyful gem of a novel." –Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Slow Fire Burning
"Beautifully poised, sad, poetic and human....I loved every single line." ―Ian Rankin
"Glorious, rambunctious, warm-hearted... a story about the drama of ordinary lives - betrayal, heartbreak, loss - but above all, love." –The Bookseller (London)
"Beautiful, absorbing." –The Sunday Telegraph (London)
"Donal Ryan makes writing look effortless. He manages to capture the world and all its broken beauty in one tiny corner of Ireland. His characters feel like people you've always known. His words seem to sing off the page." –Jan Carson, author of The Raptures
"Another offering from the master storyteller. The most vivid characters, so full of life. You read each short chapter wondering how he's crammed in so much heart and wonder, while the story itself ramps up to its quietly devastating and marvelous conclusion." –Kit de Waal author of My Name is Leon
"I was thunderstruck by this exquisitely beautiful and powerful novel. This is writing of shimmering truthfulness, empathy and authority by the most consistently brilliant Irish writer of his generation." –Joseph O’Connor, New York Times bestselling author of Star of the Sea and Shadowplay
"Donal Ryan repeatedly broke my heart and then soldered it back together with words of molten gold. The Queen of Dirt Island is a powerful tribute to mothers in all of their ferocity, tenderness and guilt. I loved this book with my whole patchwork heart. Eloquent, beautiful and threaded throughout with a joyful savage humour, a privilege to read, and re-read.’" –Liz Nugent internationally bestselling author of Little Cruelties
"Donal Ryan is one of the finest novelists writing today and this is a gem of a novel. Full of humanity, humility, humour, drama and mystery, his characters are so vivid you feel they are sitting outside, waiting for him to conjure them to life. He writes with grace and precision, with love indeed, about who we are and why, about family history and the ghosts we carry. A haunting, exquisite masterpiece." –Rachel Joyce, New York Times bestselling author of Miss Benson's Beetle
"The Queen of Dirt Island is an endlessly surprising story of the heart’s secret places, and what we hide there. The tiny chapters glow like memories, a hundred glimpses of hurt and joy that mark the steady rhythm of passing years. You really feel you’ve lived another life among these people, and known their pain, and felt the full force of their love. This magnificent novel confirms Donal Ryan is a writer of rare and precious vision: he sees the world as it ought to be, and dares you to believe in it.” –Michael Hughes, author of Country
"Hymn to the warp and woof of life; celebration of the flip-flop way of family; soaring testimony to the endurance of the human spirit. And all delivered with his trademark compassion, empathy, humour and brio. A gift of a book." –Alan McMonagle, author of Laura Cassidy's Walk of Fame and Ithaca
"Ryan’s writing is like poetry and he has a real gift for creating characters who live in full technicolour. Highly recommend." –Good Housekeeping (London)
"In Ryan’s hands the mundane and the everyday is transformed into a thing of beauty, thrumming with significance" –Refinery 29 (London)
"Magical" –The Observer (London)
"Ryan's writing is so musical, so easily heard, that your eyes will dance through its pages" –The Guardian
“. . . his sixth novel, The Queen of Dirt Island, adds to an impressive body of work that should garner him wider recognition ... Whether Ryan is exploring the shifting dynamics of the Aylward women’s often intense interactions or following the contours of Saoirse and Josh’s tempestuous love affair, he does so with sensitivity and grace ... capable of leaving an imprint on the reader’s mind and heart.” -Bookpage
★ 12/01/2022
Beginning at the end and ending with a bright beginning, this latest offering from award-winning Irish novelist Ryan (Strange Flowers; The Spinning Heart) is a broad-sweeping, satisfying family saga. It is a story of stories. The generations of Aylward women of Nenagh, County Tipperary, are tenacious and fiercely loyal. They have survived famine, death, poverty, gun-runners, and men who are either dead or useless and all the while have ignored the whispers of their neighbors. As granddaughter Saoirse navigates teenage pregnancy and a bitter family rift over a potential land grab, deep family darkness and suffering are revealed. Can Saoirse mature fast enough to survive this turbulence? Her future and that of her daughter could be in real peril from the pain wrought by people on the periphery of their lives. VERDICT This could be an incredibly sad story were it not for Ryan's ability to infuse the irony of Irish humor into its darkest corners. Light glimmers just as the story fades to black. His expert storytelling and the strength and resilience of his characters make this so much more than just another Irish family saga. Highly recommended.—Susan Clifford Braun
2022-12-14
The daughter of a single mother grows up in a family of formidable women in rural Ireland.
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. Saoirse is essentially co-parented, instead, by her paternal grandmother, Mary, a brassy woman who also becomes Eileen’s closest friend. 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. But nothing changes Saoirse’s life as much as a surprise teenage pregnancy. 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. 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. The outwardly contentious but deeply loving relationship between Eileen and Mary feels particularly true to life. His decision to break the book up into short parts, though, can make the characters and their story feel distant. Though Eileen and Mary are vivid, Saoirse herself is a frustratingly blank slate whose interests and passions never become clear. Saoirse’s life, and her mother’s, can also feel implausibly charmed when it isn’t pierced by grand tragedy. Though these tragic moments are shocking, they are undercut by Ryan’s impulse to have everyone get along in the end and to deliver his heroine a sentimentally happy ending that isn’t supported by the novel itself.
A gentle bildungsroman that could have used a little more bite.
