THE IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER
AN IRISH TIMES FICTION BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2024

In Barcelona, we meet a cast of characters who live turbulent inner lives. In a Spanish hotel room a marriage unravels as a young wife is haunted by a past love. A father travels to Paris to meet his scientist son and is exposed to his son's true nature. A woman attends a reading by a famous author and comes to some painful realisations about her own marriage.

The stories in Barcelona reveal the underlying disquiet of modern life and the sometimes brutal nature of humanity. Whether on city streets, long car journeys or in suburban rooms, we glimpse characters as they approach those moments of desperation - or revelation - that change or reshape fate.

About the Author
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. The River Capture, her second novel, was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, the Dalkey Book Awards and the Kerry Group Awards.

Reviews
Barcelona is full of devastating lines . . . Costello is working in the tradition of her literary heroes [Kafka, Musil, Coetzee]: delivering insights which are painful but also energising because of the beauty with which they're captured . . . The most impressive collection I've read in some time -- JOHN SELF * * The Times * *
Clear-eyed and provocative, bruised and bruising: these are the stories of a writer at the very top of her game -- EIMEAR McBRIDE
It is rare that a writer of fiction can evoke such depth of feeling and visceral/moral revulsion as Mary Costello . . . in stories dealing with cruelty to animals, especially the slaughter of farm animals; rare that marital intimacy is so powerfully rendered -- JOYCE CAROL OATES
Costello's writing is insistent, precise and unsparing. Everyday acts and ordinary lives are infused with a sense of the skull beneath the skin and of a catastrophe held tautly at bay * * Observer * *
Beautiful, quietly shattering . . . haunting, powerful stories . . . Costello explores the violence behind painful silences in domestic life . . . Amid complex chains of cruelty, Costello offers transcendent moments of completeness -- EMILY RHODES * * Guardian * *
[Costello is] a writer concerned with big issues of freedom, responsibility, power, inequality and suffering . . . A consistently elegant writer . . . One of the hallmarks of [her] writing is her ability to get up close to unpalatable truths and politely ask that the reader not look away * * Irish Times * *
There are memorable stories . . . [Costello] reflects on the world around her, examining its shortcomings with a forensic eye . . . A strong contender as the finest practitioner of the Joycean short story * * Irish Independent * *
Spare, unflinching . . . These elegant, emotionally complex stories are not comfortable or comforting to read, but they are beautifully, bruisingly honest * * Daily Mail * *
The characters in these stories yearn for connection, to be understood. Mary Costello shows how a fleeting insight or incident can transform a life completely and how the secret self determines our actions for better or worse. Gorgeously written provocative and brave -- GABRIEL BYRNE
Praise for Mary Costello: With extraordinary devotion, Mary Costello brings to life a woman who would otherwise have faded into oblivion -- J. M. COETZEE



Book Information
ISBN 9781805301844
Author Mary Costello
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Canongate Books
Publisher Canongate Books
Weight(grams) 199g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 136mm * 16mm