The Thing About December

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Summary

From the twice Man Booker longlisted author of From a Low and Quiet Sea

'A force of nature ... a life-enhancing talent' SEBASTIAN BARRY

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.

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'His paragraphs are unnoticeably beautiful, his heart always on show, and he writes with a social accuracy that is devastating' ANNE ENRIGHT

'Compelling and heartbreaking . . beautiful, yet simple and utterly convincing' SUNDAY TIMES

'Painfully moving ... Ryan's work has set a benchmark to which other writers will aspire' JOHN BOYNE, IRISH TIMES

'Cements Ryan as the sharpest chronicler of modern Irish life' ESQUIRE

Reviews

A force of nature ... a life-enhancing talent
Sebastian Barry

About the author

Donal Ryan

Donal Ryan is an award-winning author from Nenagh, County Tipperary, whose work has been published in over twenty languages to major critical acclaim. The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland), and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was voted 'Irish Book of the Decade'. His fourth novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2018, and won the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His novel, Strange Flowers, was voted Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was a number one bestseller, as was his most recent novel The Queen of Dirt Island, which was also shortlisted for Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Donal lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. He lives with his wife Anne Marie and their two children just outside Limerick City.

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