-
Access Our
Most Anticipated
Books of 2025!
From Lisa McInerney, hailed by The Irish Times as "arguably the most talented writer at work in Ireland today," comes The Glorious Heresies, a searing debut novel about life on the fringes of Ireland's post-crash society.
When grandmother Maureen Phelan is surprised in her home by a stranger, she clubs the intruder with a Holy Stone. The consequences of this unplanned murder connect four misfits struggling against their meager circumstances. Ryan is a fifteen-year-old drug dealer desperate not to turn out like his alcoholic father, Tony, whose feud with his next-door neighbor threatens to ruin his family. Georgie is a sex worker who half-heartedly joins a born-again movement to escape her profession and drug habit. And Jimmy Phelan, the most fearsome gangster in the city and Maureen's estranged son, finds that his mother's bizarre attempts at redemption threaten his entire organization.
Biting and darkly funny, The Glorious Heresies presents an unforgettable vision of a city plagued by poverty and exploitation, where salvation still awaits in the most unexpected places.
Women's Prize, 2016
Longlisted for the 2016 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction
Longlisted for the 2016 International Dylan Thomas Prize
Shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the Irish Book Awards
"Starred Review. This is a colorful, ambitious first outing that recalls Dylan Thomas' comment on Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds: 'Just the book to give your sister, if she is a dirty, boozey girl.'" - Kirkus
"McInerney displays a clear knack for dramatic flourish and witty turns of phrase." - Publishers Weekly
"The Glorious Heresies heralds the arrival of a glorious, foul-mouthed, fizzing new talent." - The Sunday Times (UK)
"A spectacular debut ... Tough and tender, gothic and lyrical, it is a head-spinning, stomach-churning state-of-the-nation novel about a nation falling apart." - The Daily Telegraph (UK)
"Fiendishly hilarious." - The Times (UK)
"McInerney has talent to burn." - The Guardian (UK)
"A superb debut from a confident and comic writer." - The Mail on Sunday (UK)
"A rich, touching, hilarious novel." - The Financial Times (UK)
"This is a daring, exuberant and generous novel. And a work to which you will want - eagerly - to return." - The Observer (UK)
"Impressive and imaginative ... a superb debut from a confident and comic writer with no fear of taking on serious material; McInerney is a new talent to watch out for." - Irish Mail on Sunday
"A big, brassy sexy beast of a book." - The Irish Times
This information about The Glorious Heresies was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lisa McInerney's short stories have been featured on BBC Radio 4, Granta, in The Stinging Fly, and in the anthologies The Long Gaze Back and Faber's Town and Country. The Glorious Heresies is her first novel, shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, Best Newcomer at the Irish Book Awards, and the Desmond Elliott Prize, as well as longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Lisa lives in Galway with a husband, a daughter, and a dog called Angua.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
