The Wild Laughter

Description

It's 2008, and the Celtic Tiger has left devastation in its wake. For Hart and Cormac Doharty life continues as normal - at least at first. But when their father falls ill, the boys face a devastating choice. Their family, and their community, are in crisis, and there's nothing more dangerous than two men with nothing to lose. This bold, razor-sharp take on the consequences of one life-changing decision fizzes with the voice of rural Ireland. By turns outrageous, hilarious and dark, this is an unmissable snapshot of a family, and a nation, that finds itself suddenly unmoored. The Wild Laughter cements Caoilinn Hughes's position as one of Ireland's most audacious and talented young writers.

Caoilinn Hughes is the author of Orchid & the Wasp (Oneworld 2018), which won the Collyer Bristow Prize, was shortlisted for the Hearst Big Book Awards, the Butler Literary Award and longlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award. Her poetry collection, Gathering Evidence (Carcanet 2014), won the Shine/Strong Award and was shortlisted for four other prizes. Her work has appeared in Granta, POETRY, Tin House, Best British Poetry, BBC Radio 3 and elsewhere. She has a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and she was recently Visiting Writer at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. For her short fiction, she won The Moth International Short Story Prize 2018 and an O.Henry Prize in 2019.