The Hungry Grass

Reviews / Votes

The Apollo choices have been masterful. The list is thought-provoking, eye-opening, inspired and inspiring * The Big Issue * Truly masterful, as funny as it is profound and insightful ... Published in 1969, the same year as James Plunkett's superb Dublin epic Strumpet City, The Hungry Grass is a far more sophisticated narrative, an Irish Stoner that has the pathos of John Williams's quiet American classic but also adds biting humour -- Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times The very best portrait of a priest in Irish fiction... It is a chilling yet deeply compassionate study of a man whose growth is stunted both by choice and by circumstances. The environment is perfectly realised; the small clashes, the irritations, the sense of static life, the greed and ambition of small-town politics... This is a very fine novel' * Irish Times * tylistic and sharp... What Powers has managed to do here in this quiet novel is create a character of depth and complexity... The Hungry Grass is a find' * Sunday Independent * Daring... Beautifully written... It is a masterpiece' * RTE Radio * An inspired reissuing of Power's superb novel, which was first published in 1969, reveals a writer with much in common with the great William Trevor... Easily one of the finest Irish novels ever written - no tricks, just genius' * Irish Times * This Apollo edition returns to print a neglected work of literary merit. The author's touch is light, finding humour amid the pathos * TLS * A heart-breaking aria for the unloved life... The Hungry Grass offers a remarkable elegy for squandered opportunity and has lost none of its potency in the forty years since publication' * BookWitty *