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Mouthing

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Mouthing

By: Orla Mackey
Narrated by: Stephen Hogan, Jessica Regan
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

The bestselling Irish debut novel – a multigenerational portrait of small-town life bursting with caustic wit – for fans of Jon McGregor, Elizabeth Strout and Paul Murray

Welcome to Ballyrowan: a village built out of stories. Stories about the girl who got herself into trouble and disappeared to America, the brother and sister who both went mad, the priest who tried to help them and the doctor who had them committed, about your man going off with a young one half his age, the child he left behind, the neighbour who took her in, and what was said and done about it afterwards . . .

‘Engrossing, funny, delightfully wicked’ Irish Times

‘A novel for anyone who ever wondered what the neighbours are really up to behind closed doors’ Jan Carson, author of The Raptures

‘Full of disgrace, inherited trauma and family secrets. It will make you laugh - because if you didn't, you'd surely cry’ Aingeala Flannery

©2024 Orla Mackey (P)2024 Penguin Audio

 20th Century Family Life Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Small Town & Rural World Literature Village Witty Funny

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Critic reviews

Engrossing, acerbic and brilliant. Everyone here has a tale to tell... There is a pub and there is a priest. There are secrets and lies. It is by turns funny, horrifying, and all too real... Mackey’s structure requires the reader to constantly reassess their opinions of the characters. It is a fascinating magic trick, shimmering with fractal richness... Again and again we meet a character, form an opinion, and almost immediately have that wittily torpedoed
A compelling and highly entertaining read; it is a brilliant debut . . . The more people you get to know, the more compelling the novel becomes . . . The interlinked stories are like an addictive soap opera, and you never want them to end . . . Mackey observes the small community with affection and writes about them with real insight and a finely honed wit
A bittersweet love letter to small-town Irish life over several generations, a polyvocal mosaic in the vein of Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge
A hotbed of gossip and intrigue, the novel is narrated in a dark, humorous and confessional style by several generations of villagers, from the mid-20th century to the early 21st . . . Anyone with experience of a small town will be drawn to this
A startling debut . . . The world Mackey pitches her readers into is hilarious, heartbreaking and oh-so-familiar to anyone who grew up in a small community. No character is straightforward here and each voices their story in a unique and compelling way
Intimate and panoramic, a raucous gathering of voices: full of humour, pierced with longing, caught between connection and claustrophobia. Compassionate but clear-eyed, angry and elegiac, Mouthing is a portrait of our confused and often destructive yearning for grace (Colin Walsh, author of 'Kala')
Orla Mackey writes with tenderness, honesty and caustic wit. Mouthing is full of characters who'll simultaneously make your blood boil and break your heart into little bits. A novel for everyone who's ever wondered what the neighbours are really up to behind closed doors . . . (Jan Carson, author of 'The Raptures')
Sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued, a biting, unsentimental love letter to rural Irish life
All human life is here . . . Mackey’s book is told in the richly descriptive language of the local people, and calls to mind writers like Donal Ryan and Anne Griffin
A hugely accomplished, sophisticated debut, wildly original and distinct: a startling chorus of vivid, hungry characters battling for love, status and meaning in a small Irish town where not much of anything is to be found. Mackey’s characters possess a devastating, squint-eyed wit but also a capacity for moments of great, unexpected tenderness. No one is ever as alone as they might think. I cannot wait to read what Orla Mackey does next! (Lauren Mackenzie, author of 'The Couples')
All stars
Most relevant
Loved this, all the emotions, really well put together & narrated, the characters could have each had their own novel.

Just brilliant!

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No complaints…can’t recommend it highly enough. Especially if you’re from ‘the country’!
It should be on the Leaving Cert curriculum!

The story and reality of it was engrossing

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I loved this book. Orla Mackey paints characters and stories using light strokes. Each stroke delicately layers up to a complex picture of what it is to be human. The internal monologues of her characters, often giving conflicting viewpoints of the same set of facts, resonate with the human music of my childhood. These feel like people that I know and knew, but now I know them better.
She captures the changing and yet constant versions of Ireland I have identified with but would be unable to describe. But this is only part of her gift, her real genius is in capturing the motivations of the human heart, the struggles we endure and the damage done. Another author might have made this turgid and laborious but in "Mouthing" the humour, follies and small kindnesses of humans balance the scales so that tragedy, comedy and life are inseparable. It is a universal story in a small setting. And like the lives she sets out for us, it is a beautiful and complex thing.

Her narrators, Jessica Regan and Stephen Hogan do an excellent job of bringing her characters to life in the audiobook.

In a word, beautiful.

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Thoroughly enjoyed this fantastic book, performed brilliantly. Highly recommend these authentic narratives to lovers of Irish literature.

Stunning

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Excellent storytelling. Gets the small town psyche just right. The comedy and tragedy - I came away thinking it was a great advert for therapy!

Loved it

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