The Amusements

Reviews

Brilliant. Dramatic, heartfelt, sometimes shocking and sad If you like dark humour, superbly drawn characters, caravan parks, fish suppers and slot machines, The Amusements is what you've been waiting for A fascinating portrait of small-town life. A joy to read The writing, so true to small-town life, is both shrewd and enlarging. Flannery writes like a grown-up; her flawed, hopeful characters live and grow on the page Its effortless evocations of the tides and pulls of small-town life are note perfect . . . It's often very funny, sometimes sad, always authentic and perceptive, and hugely entertaining. Beautiful [The setting of] Tramore is not only a character - it is the main character of The Amusements, with its quotidian dramas and failed epiphanies and the magnetic pull it has over everyone who encounters it, from those on a family holiday, to those who are born, bred and die there. It was a joy to read A cracker of a book. Think Kevin Barry crossed with Elizabeth Strout. The writing is that good A fresh, funny, fiercely Irish novel about the vagaries of friendship, and Aingeala Flannery - wholly in charge of her lovable, eccentric cast - writes like a dream A vibrant, evocative debut that brings the exploits of an Irish coastal town brilliantly to life Unputdownable . . . one of the best novels of the year Expand reviews