As You Were
Elaine Feeney
Discover this unforgettable, darkly funny novel about the power of friendship and the heartbreak of family life - shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2021.
'AMAZING' Marian Keyes
'BEAUTIFUL' Douglas Stuart
'FABULOUS' Kevin Barry
'THRILLING' Nicole Flattery
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Sinéad Hynes is a tough, driven, funny young property developer with a terrifying secret.
No-one knows it: not her fellow patients in a failing hospital, and certainly not her family. She has confided only in Google and a shiny magpie.
But she can't go on like this, tirelessly trying to outstrip her past and in mortal fear of her future. Somehow, Sinéad needs to seize the moment, and maybe then she can learn to be free...
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An Evening Standard, Observer and Daily Telegraph Book of the Year
An Observer Best Debut 2020
Winner of the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer Award
Winner of the McKitterick Prize 2020
Winner of the Kate O'Brien Award 2021
Shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year 2020
'Extraordinary... This is writing that often reaches into your heart' Evening Standard
'Exhilarating...gloriously full of life' Irish Independent
'Feeney's voice is at once fresh and sharp, with an eye for comedy' Observer
Product Details
About Elaine Feeney
Reviews for As You Were
Sinéad Gleeson
As You Were is an absolute tour de force: raw, sharp and wild. Elaine Feeney writes with such love for and understanding of her characters. It’s the literary equivalent of a stiff drink beside a warm fire: a book that will rattle you before it settles you.
Lisa McInerney
As You Were was just (effing) amazing. Brimful of brilliant characters – what an exciting, visceral, poetic read. I adored the lack of sentimentality. Sinéad Hynes is complex and excellently realised – a role model too, for I found her (sometime) selfishness thrillingly refreshing. As You Were gives permission to Irish women to put themselves first, and considering what we've come from, that's seismic. Elaine Feeney is such a talent. I LOVED it!
Marian Keyes
A truly original voice. Raw, urgent and uncompromising about the lengths we go to to conceal hurt, deception, psychic pain... A brilliant portrayal of the kindness of strangers, the kinship of women and the heartbreak of married love.
Mary Costello
'An absolutely fabulous book’
Kevin Barry
As You Were is a powerful openhearted novel with an authentic visceral voice. It is a thrilling, hugely enjoyable read and a quite brilliant fiction debut from this superbly gifted poet.
Mike McCormack
Outraged, compassionate, and very very funny, Elaine Feeney is a ferociously good writer.
Claire Louise Bennett
Elaine Feeney's voice is utterly singular, thrilling, unpredictable, a continuous pleasure. It seems trite in the face of such a captivating and original novel to say that we're lucky to have her - but we are.
Nicole Flattery
Beautiful, torrential, vital, Elaine Feeney's debut novel aches with all the comedy and sorrow of how it feels to be alive now.
Conor O'Callaghan
Rendered with searing honesty, biting humour, and most importantly of all perhaps, layers of compassion that creep up on you like a fragile child, Elaine Feeney's As You Were is a comet’s tail of loss, regret, hurt, damage, sass, wit, and courage; an artfully braided paean to resilience, to not giving up, to the small ways we find to bandage our broken selves. We should be grateful for this wonderful debut.
Alan McMonagle