The Thing About December Synopsis
'He heard Daddy one time saying he was a grand quiet boy to Mother when he thought Johnsey couldn't hear them talking. Mother must have been giving out about him being a gom and Daddy was defending him. He heard the fondness in Daddy's voice. But you'd have fondness for an auld eejit of a crossbred pup that should have been drowned at birth.' While the Celtic Tiger rages, and greed becomes the norm, Johnsey Cunliffe desperately tries to hold on to the familiar, even as he loses those who all his life have protected him from a harsh world. Village bullies and scheming land-grabbers stand in his way, no matter where he turns. Set over the course of one year of Johnsey's life, The Thing About December breathes with his grief, bewilderment, humour and agonizing self-doubt. This is a heart-twisting tale of a lonely man struggling to make sense of a world moving faster than he is. Donal Ryan's award-winning debut, The Spinning Heart, garnered unprecedented acclaim, and The Thing About December confirms his status as one of the best writers of his generation.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780552773577 |
| Publication date: |
18th September 2014 |
| Author: |
Donal Ryan |
| Publisher: |
Black Swan Ireland an imprint of Transworld Publishers Ltd |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
208 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Family Drama
|
| Recommendations: |
|
Donal Ryan Press Reviews
'A concise, radiant, measured and integral work... This is one of those beautiful, serious, fully living novels that make you laugh out loud... Donal Ryan is a magus of a writer. He has such magic at his disposal to tell a story... This is a novel to replenish the reader's heart and spruce the reader's soul, although it also makes one doubt we possess such signal things. It's a force of nature, high artifice and the product of a life-enhancing talent.'
- Sebastian Barry, Guardian
'Ryan writes from the rural heartland in prose that always pushes for the truth of things... His characters are large-hearted people in a small-minded world... He underplays the ironic distance and pulls our sympathies tight. And he tells a great story. His paragraphs are unnoticeably beautiful, his heart always on show, and he writes with a social accuracy that is devastating... There are ... not many who hit the sweet spot of the Irish tradition as Donal Ryan does here.' -- Anne Enright Observer
Painfully moving ... Ryan writes with absolute confidence, balancing emotion, surprise and ambiguity... In his descriptions of the conflicts between stunted young men and their domineering parents he recalls the great John McGahern ... he is indisputably carving his own terrain with these short, fierce books that strike at the heart of what it has meant to be Irish in recent times ... Ryan's work has set a benchmark to which other writers will aspire.'
- John Boyne, The Irish Times
'Clear-eyed and moving.'
- Belinda McKeon, Irish Independent
'Powerful ... Ryan is clearly committed to his subject and possesses the insight and empathy to illuminate the heart of the matter.'
- Claire Kilroy, Financial Times
About Donal Ryan
Donal Ryan was born in a village in north Tipperary, a stroll from the shores of Lough Derg. Donal wrote the first draft of The Spinning Heart in the long summer evenings of 2010, and has also completed a second novel. He lives with his wife Anne Marie and two children just outside Limerick City.
More About Donal Ryan
