As children everywhere go back to school now that September is almost upon us, they won’t be the only ones getting to grips with some new books. For this month’s Eason Book Club on The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk, the panel will tackle the new novel by award-winning Irish writer Eimear McBride, The Lesser Bohemians.
McBride’s debut novel, A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, was published in 2013 after the author spent the better part of a decade dealing with rejection letters from publishers. When her book was finally released to the public, it was to high praise from literary critics all over the world, winning McBride a number of awards, including the prestigious Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction and the inaugural Goldsmith’s Prize.
It was during the nine years of dealing with the rejection of her debut that McBride started work on her follow-up, applying her unique voice and prose to an unlikely love story.
Set in a series of bedsits and studio flats in 90s London, The Lesser Bohemians tells the story of an 18-year-old Irish woman who begins a new life as a drama student, her hopes dominated by the ambitions and expectations of a young actress searching for the fame she’s long been pining for. Young, naive, and ordinary, she struggles to fit in and make friendships, until she meets an attractive older man.
Twenty years her senior, he’s already an established actor, but haunted by his own demons. Over the course of a year, their clamorous relationship runs the risk of destroying both of them.
The Eason Book Club will take place on the final Thursday of the September, the 29th. You can listen back to August’s discussion of Matthew Griffin’s Hide in the podcast below:
