Wild Houses
A Novel
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Wild Houses
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Narrated by:
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Damian Gildea
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Written by:
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Colin Barrett
About this listen
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 BOOKER PRIZE
From the award-winning writer of Homesickness and Young Skins, a darkly funny and deeply moving debut novel about crimes of desperation, dreams abandoned, and small-town secrets that won’t stay buried.
As Ballina in the west of Ireland prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, the simmering feud between small-time dealer Cillian English and County Mayo's fraternal enforcers, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, spills over into violence and an ugly ultimatum.
When the reclusive Dev answers his door on Friday night, he finds Doll—Cillian's bruised, sullen, teenage brother—in the clutches of Gabe and Sketch. Jostled by his nefarious cousins, goaded by his dead mother's dog, and struck by spinning lights, Dev is unwillingly drawn headlong into the Ferdias' revenge fantasy.
Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Nicky can't shake the feeling something bad has happened to her boyfriend Doll. Hungover, reeling from a fractious Friday night, and plagued by ghosts of her own, Nicky sets out on a feverish mission to save Doll, even as she questions her future in Ballina.
The beautifully crafted, thrillingly told story of two outsiders striving to find themselves as their worlds collapse in chaos and violence, Wild Houses is the long-anticipated debut novel from award-winning and critically acclaimed short story writer, Colin Barrett.
What the critics say
One of the Globe and Mail's most anticipated books of 2024
“[W]hen reading Barrett, one is immediately struck by a sensation best described as relief: the realisation that one is in safe hands here; this is a writer of glaringly obvious talent, operating at a seriously high level. […] Barrett’s handling of dialogue . . . is so consistently witty and inventive that one struggles to think of recent novels that could stand up to comparison. […] Wild Houses [is] a novel which proves that, in the right hands, fine lines can fill a canvas as effectively as the boldest of brushstrokes.” —The Guardian, Book of the Day
“Adroit. . . . A pointed and poignant commentary on life on the edges in rural Ireland.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A novel such as Wild Houses realises life in full and without pity. Violence is undercut with idiosyncratic humour. . . . A palpable sense of human eccentricity, and endurance, is always there, just beneath the surface.” —The Telegraph