Overview

From the author of the acclaimed Big Girl, Small Town, a darkly comic coming-of-age story about a young woman working a summer job in a shirt factory in Northern Ireland, while tensions rise both inside and outside the factory walls. It's the summer of 1994 and all Maeve Murray wants are good final exam results so she can earn her ticket out of the wee Northern Irish town she has grown up in during the Troubles--away from her crowded home, the silence and sadness surrounding her sister's death, and most of all away from the simmering violence and religious tensions of her divided community. And as a first step, Maeve's taken a summer job in an integrated local shirt factory working alongside Protestants with her bff, cuddly kind Caroline Jackson, and her oblivious frenemy, privileged and clever Aoife O'Neill. But getting the right exam results are only part of Maeve's problem - she's got to survive a tit-for-tat paramilitary campaign as brutal as her relationship with her mam, iron 100 shirts an hour all day every day in the local factory, put up with the Proddies, and escape the attentions of Andy Strawbridge--her slick and untrustworthy English boss. What seems to be a great opportunity to earn money before starting university turns out to be a crucible in which Maeve - and the other vulnerable workers in the factory - are tested in ways they're not equipped to handle. And seeking justice for herself and her fellow workers may just be Maeve's one-way ticket out of town. Biting, perceptive, and steeped in the vernacular of its time and place, Factory Girls brings readers an unforgettable heroine willing to sacrifice everything to reach for her dreams.

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Reviews

Factory Girls is full of the stuff that we're starting to expect of Michelle Gallen; wild, hilariously angry characters, and language that is vital, bang-on, and seriously funny. --Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize-winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and Love Gallen manages to take a dark and violent period in history and turn it into one of the most moving and hilarious novels I have ever read. The rich cast of characters will break your heart and make you laugh out loud, sometimes within the same paragraph. I found it difficult to put this book down; while reading it the rest of the world fell away and I was transported to Northern Ireland via an unforgettable voice and a steadily boiling story of friendship, grief, and determination. Factory Girls is one of the best books ever written about The Troubles, and one of the best books I've read in a very long time. --Silas House, author of Southernmost and Lark Ascending A wee novel with an enormous, furious heart, Factory Girls transported me into Maeve's world. You can almost taste the tension and claustrophobia as Gallen effortlessly captures the stories of young women teetering between stasis and escape. Honest, hilarious and such a recognisable portrait of 90s Northern Ireland, Factory Girls is an essential read. --Jan Carson, author of The Raptures

This novel is a wonder; the heroine is cheeky, the humor dark, the dialect thick, the sorrow palpable. -- Library Journal (starred review) Wild, hilariously angry characters, and language that is vital, bang-on, and seriously funny. -- Roddy Doyle, New York Times bestselling author

Author Information

"Michelle Gallen's first novel, Big Girl, Small town, was nominated for the Costa Book Award. She was born in Northern Ireland in County Tyrone in the mid 1970s and grew up during the Troubles, a few miles from the border between what she was told was the ""Free"" State and the ""United"" Kingdom. She studied English literature at Trinity College Dublin and won several prestigious prizes as a young writer. Following a devastating brain injury in her mid-twenties, she co-founded three award-winning companies and won international recognition for digital innovation."

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