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The Coast Road
Alan Murrin
FREE Delivery in Ireland
Description for The Coast Road
Paperback.
WINNER OF THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS: NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR 2024
NB. MAGAZINE'S BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024
A WOMEN & HOME BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024
‘A perfect book club read ... Assured and powerful’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘A compelling, compassionate page-turner’ OBSERVER
‘I loved this novel ... An addictive read’ GILLIAN ANDERSON
‘Moves between rage, forgiveness and hope ... A stonkingly good novel’ SARAH WINMAN
‘A beautiful, accomplished debut’ LOUISE KENNEDY
'Impressive' TLS
'An absolute triumph ... I loved everything about it' GILL HORNBY
It’s 1994 in County Donegal, Ireland, and everyone is talking ... Read moreabout Colette Crowley – the writer, the bohemian, the woman who left her husband and sons to pursue a relationship with a married man in Dublin. But now Colette is back, and nobody knows why.
Returning to the community to try and reclaim her old life, Colette quickly learns that they are unwilling to give it back to her. The man to whom she is still married is denying her access to her children, and while the legalisation of divorce might be just around the corner, Colette finds herself caught between her old life and the freedom for which she risked everything. Desperate to see her children, she enlists the help of Izzy, a housewife and mother of two, and the women forge a friendship that will send them on a spiralling journey – one toward a path of self-discovery, and the other toward tragedy.
Brilliantly observed from a sharp new literary talent, The Coast Road is a novel about a closed community and the consequences of daring to move against the tide.
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Product Details
Publisher
Bloomsbury London
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
About Alan Murrin
Alan Murrin is an Irish fiction writer based in Berlin. In 2021 he was the winner of the Bournemouth Writing Prize for his short story “The Wake”, which went on to be shortlisted for short story of the year at the Irish Book Awards. He is the recipient of an Irish Arts Council Agility Award and an Arts Council Literature ... Read moreBursary. He is a graduate of the prose fiction masters at the University of East Anglia. His work was featured as part of the New Irish Writing series in the Irish Independent. His work has been short-listed for the Irish Arts and Writers Festival short story prize, the New Irish Writing in Germany Prize, and he was long-listed for the 2021 University of Essex International short story prize. He writes for the Irish Times, Times Literary Supplement and Spectator. His writing on art and photography has appeared in Art Review and The White Review. Show Less
Reviews for The Coast Road
Beautifully written ... The novel is wonderful on what it means to live in a patriarchal society and the consequences women can suffer for trying to follow their dreams. Compelling
Daily Mail
Murrin’s novel is immaculately crafted, his characterisation beautifully nuanced ... Murrin’s scrutiny of the community’s prejudice is shot through with humour, while he writes perceptively about ... Read morelove, desire and the limitations placed on women ... A compelling, compassionate page-turner
Observer
Packed with shenanigans – affairs, separations, deaths, priests and politics – the narrative unfolds in a gossipy rush that is well suited to the small town milieu. But Murrin attends to a different kind of desperation too, the real and heartbreaking lack of agency for women in difficult, unsatisfying marriages in twentieth century Ireland. This is what elevates his novel, bringing the lives of his distinctive female characters into high definition ... Murrin switches with remarkable ease between the perspectives ... An engrossing read ... A gripping character-driven novel that is accessible and literary in style
Irish Times
An absolute zinger ... A beautifully told, interwoven story full of really vivid characters ... If I didn’t know it was a man who wrote it, I would definitely say it was a woman who wrote it, because he gets under the skin of the women characters in particular really well. Highly recommend it, it’s a beautiful read
Barbara Scully, author of WISE UP [via Instagram] If the book club queen Reese Witherspoon relocated to the Irish Republic, this would tick all her boxes ... This is an assured and powerful debut, and Murrin shows impressive imaginative power in inhabiting the hopes and fears of married, middle-aged mothers. It’s well worth a slot in your book club calendar ... It is thoughtful, readable and funny, and even occasionally thrilling ... An assured and powerful debut, and Murrin shows impressive imaginative power
Sunday Times
‘Scandal, hypocrisy and the stigma of divorce make this Irish novel sing ... The story is crisply told ... Murrin is sceptically yet tenderly observant'
Telegraph
With nuanced observations, humour and heartbreak, the novel mirrors the backdrop of the sea, whose ebb and flow belies dangerous currents below the surface
Woman & Home, Book of the Month
I loved this novel. All the female characters are complex and fascinating, and full of anger and hope. I found it an addictive read
Gillian Anderson Alan Murrin is a gifted storyteller, his characters so fully realised I fretted for them as I read. A beautiful, accomplished debut
Louise Kennedy, author of TRESPASSES I have been rooted to my sun bed gulping it down ... What an absolute triumph, and even more astonishing for being a debut. I loved everything about it and can’t wait to read what he does next
Gill Hornby Alan Murrin writes with the calm, poetic fluency of the best of Irish writers. The Coast Road is set in Donegal the year before divorce became legal in Ireland, and the many themes are equally – sadly – as relevant now. Women’s autonomy is beautifully scrutinised in a shifting tempo that moves between rage, forgiveness and hope. It’s a stonkingly good novel. Just read it
Sarah Winman, bestselling author of STILL LIFE Tender, truthful and simmering with rage ... An emotionally eviscerating tale, told in deceptively calm prose
Mail on Sunday
[A] Lyrical debut …With nuanced observations, humour and heartbreak, the novel mirrors the backdrop of the sea, whose ebb and flow belies dangerous currents below the surface
Woman & Home, Book of the Month June 2024
Cheating husbands and wayward wives in a tiny coastal town, set during a time when divorce in Ireland was illegal, Alan Murrin’s The Coast Road had me at hello. The writing is spare and elegant, the setting atmospheric — indeed, Murrin’s Ardglas is a character in its own right. An assured, gripping debut from an author I hope to read more of
Jamie Quatro, author of FIRE SERMON Psychologically rich, emotionally resonant, and powered by a vivid cast of characters, The Coast Road explores the intimacies that bind individuals and communities together – for better and for worse. This is an incredibly satisfying novel, told with great tenderness and tremendous storytelling verve. A book to be savoured
Colin Walsh, author of KALA A smashing debut ... Each of the characters is vividly rendered, and Murrin excels at portraying the rippling consequences of small-town gossip and intolerance. This is a marvel
Publishers Weekly
This beautifully atmospheric novel is a dark, unsettling warning about how easily narrow attitudes can turn into dangerous ones. An eerie, urgent debut from an exciting new voice
Neil Blackmore, author of RADICAL LOVE Propelled by a gripping narrative and powerfully drawn characters The Coast Road makes for compulsive reading. Alan Murrin has written a poignant, utterly truthful story of passions prejudice and tragedy in a small town. Brilliant
Gabriel Byrne, prizewinning actor and author of WALKING WITH GHOSTS An exceptional debut about marriage and freedom, about love and the ways it can heal and hurt us. A must read for 2024
Sarah Crossan, author of HERE IS THE BEEHIVE This story of tragedy and strength casts you into the waves of small-town life
Sainsbury's Magazine
Murrin writes with a masterful ease and confidence ... This is a strong story well told
Debut Digest
Murrin inhabits his female characters with impressive confidence
Financial Times
Alan Murrin is one of the sharpest new minds on the literary scene
Sheerluxe
An astonishingly assured piece of writing ... An intricate and deeply compassionate study of women’s lives and the forces that shape them
Marie Claire
Impressive ... The Coast Road is entirely invested in its characters [and] captures suggestively a specific moment somewhere between Éamon de Valera’s conservatism and the vainglory of the Celtic Tiger era ... It is also an intriguing addition to the the swelling library of contemporary Irish novels – Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These [and] Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting
TLS
The setting of The Coast Road is both viscerally realised and intensely purposeful ... Murrin’s insight into the female experience is practically note-perfect
Service95
A compelling snapshot of one conservative Catholic community ahead of a landmark change to domestic life ... Murrin is an astute and sensitive writer ... in Murrin’s capable hands, it’s a story that will make you think – not least about the slow pace of change in Catholic Ireland
Spectator
An assured, engrossing and enviably readable debut
Louise Kennedy
Guardian
Alan Murrin's The Coast Road weaves a story of suspense, resentment and desire in 1994 Ireland ... written in prose that’s as moody, striking and lovely as the landscape ... [a] compelling, suspenseful novel
Berliner
Murrin's story has crispness, tenderness and observative power in equal measure
Telegraph This beautiful, astute, and powerful novel has been one of our favourites since its publication
NB Magazine
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