Overview

'Mary Costello is a writer of a rare and exquisite sensitivity - intimate, piercing, death-haunted - with sentences that can turn on a pin into vastness' - PAUL LYNCH My name is Anna, and for some time now, I have been trying to account for certain events in my life - my adult life, that is - which, from this vantage point of forty-five years, I often find baffling . . . In 1985 Dublin, nineteen-year-old Anna Hughes is in thrall to Peter Gallagher, an older, worldly man. Anna is new to the city, introverted and naïve, and Peter's experience, wide circle of friends and thirst for adventure captivate her. Her obsessive longing for him leads to marriage and, eventually, a crushing betrayal. As Anna's life becomes less predictable, she uncovers deeper layers of herself. Her journey gives an intimate portrait of a woman embracing herself as she is, and claiming the life she yearns for. 'It is rare that a writer of fiction can evoke such depth of feeling and visceral/moral revulsion as Mary Costello' - JOYCE CAROL OATES

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9781837263110

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Reviews

An exceptional, compulsive novel of love, loss and courage. Told in poetic, clear-eyed prose, A Beautiful Loan is heart-breaking but unsentimental, and easily Costello's best work yet -- SINEAD GLEESON Praise for Mary Costello: Costello's writing has the kind of urgency that the great problems demand -- ANNE ENRIGHT I read Academy Street cover to cover in one night, unable to stop . . . [It] brings to mind the elegance of Colm Toibin and the insight of Alice Munro -- MAGGIE O'FARRELL Clear-eyed and provocative, bruised and bruising . . . a writer at the very top of her game -- EIMEAR McBRIDE With extraordinary devotion, Mary Costello brings to life a woman who would otherwise have faded into oblivion -- J.M. COETZEE It is rare that a writer of fiction can evoke such depth of feeling and visceral/moral revulsion as Mary Costello -- JOYCE CAROL OATES A clear line of sight into the core of our humanity -- DONAL RYAN Mary Costello is a writer of rare and exquisite sensitivity - intimate, piercing, death-haunted - with sentences that can turn on a pin into vastness -- PAUL LYNCH Beautiful, quietly shattering * * Guardian * *

Author Information

Mary Costello lives in Galway. Her short story collection, The China Factory (2012), was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award and shortlisted for an Irish Book Award. Her first novel, Academy Street (2014), won the Irish Novel of the Year Award at the Irish Book Awards and was named overall Irish Book of the Year. It was serialised on BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, the Costa First Novel Prize, the EU Prize for Literature and the Prix Littéraire des Ambassadeurs de la Francophonie en Irlande, andhas been translated into several languages. Her critically acclaimed second novel, The River Capture (2019) was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards, the Kerry Novel of the Year and the Dalkey Novel Award. Her second short story collection, Barcelona (2024) was an Irish Times Bestseller.

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