This literally just turned up on my doorstep. Now anybody who reads this blog has probably had enough of me waxing on about this novel, but it is so brilliant, my favourite or second favourite read of the year.
This is the first edition, first print of HIMSELF by Jess Kidd. It is was published by CANONGATE in 2016, It is signed by Jess on the title page.
Here is a synopsis -
Blending strange kindnesses, casual violence and buried secrets: an unforgettable debut from a dark new voice in Irish fiction
When Mahony returns to Mulderrig, a speck of a place on Ireland’s west coast, he brings only a photograph of his long-lost mother and a determination to do battle with the village’s lies.
His arrival causes cheeks to flush and arms to fold in disapproval. No one in the village - living or dead - will tell what happened to the teenage mother who abandoned him as a baby, despite Mahony's certainty that more than one of them has answers.
Between Mulderrig’s sly priest, its pitiless nurse and the caustic elderly actress throwing herself into her final village play, this beautiful and darkly comic debut novel creates an unforgettable world of mystery, bloody violence and buried secrets.
Thankyou to Keith Cullen from SETANTA BOOKS for once again excellent service.