Generation by Paula McGrath

Congratulations to my sister, Paula McGrath, on the publication of her debut novel, Generation, published by JM Originals.

I’ve had the privilege of reading raw first drafts of most of these stories some time ago and watched them slowly evolve into the beautiful novel that was launched last week in the Gutter Bookshop in Cow's Lane, Dublin.

Generation is a short novel that contains a huge amount, taking place over eighty years, three continents and three generations.

At its heart is Áine, a recently divorced woman in her thirties who wants some kind of escape from her life in Ireland: from her ex-husband and his pregnant girlfriend, her mundane job and unexciting love life. So she goes to stay for a few weeks on an organic farm near Chicago, with her six-year-old daughter Daisy. The trip doesn't turn out as she imagined it would, and that summer will have unforeseeable consequences for everyone involved.

Ambitious and gripping, Generation moves effortlessly from the smallest of details to the largest of canvases, as the repercussions of the decisions taken by parents play out in the lives of their children for years to come.

Source: hodder.co.uk

This is a book that leaves you reflecting about many of the peripheral characters. I have a soft spot for Carlos, and for Yehudit. And the first chapter about the Irish miner going to Canada still gives me a lump in my throat no matter how many times I read it.

It was exciting to be in Dublin on publication day. We managed to drop into a few bookshops to see if we could spot it in the wild fending for itself. We found it first in Hodges Figgis: Here’s Paula looking slightly embarrassed at the paparazzi who followed her in.

Launched by Lia Mills, who had nothing but nice things to say, and Tom Morris from The Stinging Fly was there to say a few words on behalf of editor Mark Richards.

Lia Mills

 

And the reviews are coming in and saying all the nicest things. Christina Patterson from The Sunday Times says 'The voices are beautifully woven together, and the prose has a weight and resonance way beyond the book's slender length' and compares the prose to Raymond Carver’s which is something to cut out and pin over the writing desk.

The structure of this novel is what makes it unique in my opinion. Jane Housham of The Guardian sums this up nicely:

'It’s as if McGrath has spun her novel in a centrifuge, separating out the narrative elements and shearing off any remaining scraps of padding. What’s left is a sequence of verbal portraits, a clutch of individuals drawn to America over several decades, some of them Irish like the novelist herself, some from other diasporas. At first these characters seem disparate, unconnected, but gradually threads of attachment are strung between them, ultimately binding them into a coherent whole.'