SHORTLISTED FOR THE BORD GÁIS ENERGY IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2017
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE
Ithaca, the ferociously funny and unbelievably poignant debut novel from Alan McMonagle, combines a fiercely emotional story with crackling prose.
This was the summer after all the money disappeared. One minute it was here. The next it had vanished. All of it. Without trace . . . Now that all the money had vanished everyone had their eyes and ears ready for all manner of doom.
Summer 2009, and eleven-year-old Jason Lowry is preoccupied with thoughts of the Da he has never known. In the meantime, his vodka-swilling, swings-from-the-hip Ma is busy entertaining her latest boyfriend and indulging her fondness for joyriding.
Jason escapes to the Swamp: a mysteriously rising pool of fetid water on the outskirts of the town. There, he meets the girl, a being as lost as himself, and with even less regard for reality. Together, they conjure exotic adventures - from ancient Egypt to the search for Ithaca, home of Odysseus. But what begin as innocent flights of fancy soon become forays into hazardous territory; the girl is a dangerous (and very committed) partner in crime.
Praise for Ithaca:
'Right from its remarkable opening sentence, this extraordinary debut had me hooked. A fierce, funny, on-its-own-terms, beautiful, heartbreaker of a novel.' Joseph O'Connor
'Fast and urgent and full of feeling and savage humour and all kinds of tenderness.'
Kevin Barry, author of City of Bohane
'Strange and wondrous; savage with vision, leaping with wit and moving in ways that are quite impossible to shake off, Alan McMonagle's Ithaca is a stunner.'
Belinda McKeon, author of Solace
'Flawless prose and razor dialogue . . . Mesmerising, unforgettable.'
Donal Ryan, author of The Spinning Heart
For these crazed, corrupt, corrupting times, at last, a voice with the courage to defy them, in prose as precise as it is shattering, Alan McMonagle proves himself to be a magnificent author, one of the best in contemporary fiction.
