Lisa McInerney’s debut novel is an unflinching examination of the cycle of poverty that drives crime in modern day Ireland. The consequences of this unplanned murder unfold over the course of the novel, which spans several years, in the city of Cork. They weave in and out of each other’s lives, implicitly connected by a single act that occurs in the first chapter: Maureen discovers an intruder in her home, and, startled, she hits him over the head, killing him. The way these characters relate to one another is complicated, tangled. The Glorious Heresies centers around five characters: fifteen-year-old drug dealer Ryan and his alcoholic father Tony, grandmother Maureen and her gangster son Jimmy, and a prostitute named Georgie. There’s so much to unpack here, I’m not quite sure where to begin. This is one of the most hard-hitting and thematically rich books I’ve read in a long time. I hold onto her and tell her I love her and tell her I’ll do anything she wants me to do but beyond my words and her weight in my arms there’s the knowing we fucked this up.
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