Ordinary Human Failings

Description

London in the nineties- a tabloid journalist begins to probe long-held secrets of an Irish family implicated in a shocking crime A Highly Anticipated Novel of 2023 in The Times, i-D, Esquire and the Guardian When we look beyond the headlines, everyone has a story to tell It's 1990 in London and Tom Hargreaves has it all- a burgeoning career as a reporter, fierce ambition and a brisk disregard for the "peasants" - ordinary people, his readers, easy tabloid fodder. His star looks set to rise when he stumbles across a scoop- a dead child on a London estate, grieving parents loved across the neighbourhood, and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive family of Irish immigrants and "bad apples"- the Greens. At their heart sits Carmel- beautiful, otherworldly, broken, and once destined for a future beyond her circumstances until life - and love - got in her way. Crushed by failure and surrounded by disappointment, there's nowhere for her to go and no chance of escape. Now, with the police closing in on a suspect and the tabloids hunting their monster, she must confront the secrets and silences that have trapped her family for so many generations.

Megan Nolan was born in 1990 in Waterford, Ireland and is currently based in London. Her essays and reviews have been published by the New York Times, the White Review, the Guardian and Frieze amongst others. Her debut novel Acts of Desperation was published by Jonathan Cape in 2021 and was the recipient of a Betty Trask Award, shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.

Given Nolan's previous form, this is set to be electric. * Sunday Times, *Five Hot Reads for 2023* * Thrilling... Nolan is the real deal * The Times, praise for ACTS OF DESPERATION * A mesmerising debut that is a masterpiece from the opening sentence to the bitter end * Independent, praise for ACTS OF DESPERATION * Nolan's gutsiest achievement is reclaiming the female experience of love and desire in all its shades from lighter literature * Observer, praise for ACTS OF DESPERATION * The millennial author everyone should be watching right now * Daily Telegraph, praise for ACTS OF DESPERATION * A huge literary talent -- Karl Ove Knausgaard, author of My Struggle