The Glorious Heresies
Lisa McInerney
John Murray
<span><p>
  <em>'The Glorious Heresies</em> heralds the arrival of a glorious, foul-mouthed, fizzing new talent' SUNDAY TIMES
</p><p>
  'Totally and unmistakably the real deal' KEVIN BARRY
</p><p>
  'A real stunner; a wild ride of a read' DONAL RYAN
</p><p>
  'A gripping and often riotously funny tale' COLIN BARRETT
</p><p>
  'A punchy, edgy, sexy, fizzing feast of a debut novel' JOSEPH O'CONNOR
</p><p>'He was definitely dead, whoever he was. He wore a once-black
jumper and a pair of shiny tracksuit bottoms. The back of his head was
cracked and his hair matted, but it had been foxy before that. A tall
man, a skinny rake, another string of piss, now departed. She hadn't
gotten a look at his face before she flaked him with the Holy Stone and
she couldn't bring herself to turn him over.'</p><p>One messy murder
affects the lives of five misfits who exist on the fringes of Ireland's
post-crash society. Ryan is a fifteen-year-old drug dealer desperate not
 to turn out like his alcoholic father Tony, whose obsession with his
unhinged next-door neighbour threatens to ruin him and his family.
Georgie is a prostitute whose willingness to feign a religious
conversion has dangerous repercussions, while Maureen, the accidental
murderer, has returned to Cork after forty years in exile to discover
that Jimmy, the son she was forced to give up years before, has grown
into the most fearsome gangster in the city. In seeking atonement for
the murder and a multitude of other perceived sins, Maureen threatens to
 destroy everything her son has worked so hard for, while her actions
risk bringing the intertwined lives of the Irish underworld into the
spotlight . . . </p><p>Biting, moving and darkly funny, <em>The Glorious Heresies</em> explores salvation, shame and the legacy of Ireland's twentieth-century attitudes to sex and family.</p></span>