A sharp, unsentimental study of a complicated family and how love
both chosen and unbidden
shapes human lives
Financial Times Despite an impressive body of work, which extends to plays for the stage and radio, she remains relatively little known and is often described as the most underrated of Irish authors. She has the power ... Read moreif a quiet talent...her authorial voice is restrained and it is her dialogue which dominates the narrative...Foolish Morals "gives usa few glimpses of New Ireland, and Johnston's view of it is bleak, but not without hope'
TLS Part of the author's achievement here is to undermine, with her customary elliptical deftness, conventional ideas about family relations and activities. Various kinds of female strength cancel out various masculine weaknesses as Johnston remains alive to the oddity, and the nuances, of middle-class updated life'
Independent Johnston picks her way through the complicated emotional minefield of her 15th novel with a light step. The writing is witty and subtly nuanced and the book is as much about the new Ireland- modern, forward looking, practical and tolerant- as about the individual characters'
Daily Mail 'A complex, wry domestic drama! a writer of the highest order'
Sunday Telegraph 'Foolish Mortals has a cast of convincing characters...Johnston is one of the most revered Irish writers, and this, her fifteenth novel, makes us understand why. Her style is simple and colloquial...there are no literary pretensions: story and characters take priority. However, this modest approach works so well that the result is great writing all the same...Foolish Mortals is essentially an uplifting read'
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