The Comets
Collected Short Fiction
Will be published approx. on 1. October 2026
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-1-5294-4995-2 (ISBN)
Description
'For over thirty years, Eoin McNamee has been one of the outstanding writers of his generation' David Peace
'McNamee's books are intense and compressed, but so carefully worked that they read smoothly' The Times
By the author of The Bureau and Resurrection Man, a complete collection of Eoin McNamee's shorter fiction, published in one volume for the first time.
Each of these stories is a world to itself, steeped in eerie beauty.
A frosty northern witch changes the life of a twelve-year-old girl by teaching her that women keep their dreams in their hair. The wondrous souls of the dead become bright comets arcing over a seaside town. A girl on fire runs through the snow, and a woman on the run is transformed into an ice queen by her own will. Lives unravel and are remade and if they are lost they are lost to beauty.
At once realist and magical, contemporary and timeless, The Comets confirms Eoin McNamee's status as one of Ireland's greatest prose stylists and a storyteller of inalienable power.
'McNamee's books are intense and compressed, but so carefully worked that they read smoothly' The Times
By the author of The Bureau and Resurrection Man, a complete collection of Eoin McNamee's shorter fiction, published in one volume for the first time.
Each of these stories is a world to itself, steeped in eerie beauty.
A frosty northern witch changes the life of a twelve-year-old girl by teaching her that women keep their dreams in their hair. The wondrous souls of the dead become bright comets arcing over a seaside town. A girl on fire runs through the snow, and a woman on the run is transformed into an ice queen by her own will. Lives unravel and are remade and if they are lost they are lost to beauty.
At once realist and magical, contemporary and timeless, The Comets confirms Eoin McNamee's status as one of Ireland's greatest prose stylists and a storyteller of inalienable power.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Quercus Publishing
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
N/A
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-5294-4995-2 (9781529449952)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Eoin McNamee is the author of eight novels including Resurrection Man, later filmed, and the Blue Trilogy. His work has been nominated for and won many major prizes including the Man Booker Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize, the Kerry Fiction Prize, the Imison Award and the CWA Steel Dagger. Liam McIllvaney said of McNamee's prose that it has the 'cadenced majesty of McCarthy or DeLillo, but the vision it enacts is all his own.'