Naoise Dolan

Greta,​ the narrator of Jen Beagin’s third novel, Big Swiss, is a 45-year-old American woman who lives in Hudson, New York. She has slightly deranged ideas about Europe. She’s convinced, for instance, that multilingualism is something Europeans achieve in order to make Americans feel bad. She also maintains that Europeans can be divided neatly into two categories: the...

Do​ the Irish have a unique way of handling death? I don’t know, but I can tell you how my family does it. We circle through dark humour, pass around food and drink, pivot to banalities, current affairs and local gossip. (‘Hasn’t your one done well for herself?’ ‘Isn’t himself in an awful way?’) Elaine Feeney’s first novel combines all of these...