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An Arrow in Flight
- Author
- Mary Lavin
- Narrator
- Emma Lowe
- Publisher
- Random House
- Publish Date
- 5 March 2026
- Run Time
- 13 hours 33 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
Mary Lavin is the great unsung voice of Irish fiction. Here are her very best, most electric stories: illuminating, moving, arrows in flight.
SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY COLM TÓIBÍN
Mary Lavin’s stories feature ordinary people in the tight confines of ordinary life. From rural Ireland and the streets of Dublin they charm, irritate and intrigue in complicated brilliance, appearing to us with unique freshness. Good friendships, bad deeds, frustrations, missteps, hope and laughter are all found in captivating stories where real and astonishing things happen.
Few women were so consistently published in the New Yorker and yet today Lavin’s work is largely unpublished and overlooked. This collection re-establishes her as one of the most genius, irresistible and memorable voices of the last century.
SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY COLM TOÍBÍN
‘She is, to come right out with it, magnificent’ New York Times
‘Mary Lavin’s stories are a delight. They are delicate, but not too delicate to carry tragedy on one shoulder and comedy on the other’ Sunday Times
‘Lavin writes like a dream’ New York Times Book Review
© Mary Lavin 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026
Critics Review
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Mary Lavin’s stories are patient, knowing, richly discriminating and wonderfully memorable. They're important work
Richard Ford
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She is, to come right out with it, magnificent
New York Times
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She reminds us…what literature is about
Anthony Burgess
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Mary Lavin’s stories are a delight. They are delicate, but not too delicate to carry tragedy on one shoulder and comedy on the other
Sunday Times
See more reviews See fewer reviews
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She fascinates me more than any other of the Irish writers of my generation
Frank O’Connor
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Mary Lavin is keeping the stronghold of the Irish story in first-rate repair
Spectator
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Mary Lavin's prose has the simplicity and glow of time-polished wood
Sunday Times
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Caustic and also lyrical, she sees Ireland, even in its most obscure aspects, with a visionary penetration
Seamus Deane
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[Lavin] writes like a dream
New York Times Book Review
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These sombre and skilfully written stories describe the tragic dilemmas with which character and nature confront humans everywhere
Washington Post
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Mary Lavin
- Narrator
- Emma Lowe
- Duration
- 13 hours 33 minutes
- Release Date
- 5 March 2026
- ISBN
- 9781529985382
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Random House
- Genre
- Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Short stories, Narrative theme: sense of place
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.Mary Lavin is the great unsung voice of Irish fiction. Here are her very best, most electric stories: illuminating, moving, arrows in flight.SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY COLM TÓIBÍNMary Lavin’s stories feature ordinary people in the tight confines of ordinary life. From rural Ireland and the streets of Dublin they charm, irritate and intrigue in complicated brilliance, appearing to us with unique freshness. Good friendships, bad deeds, frustrations, missteps, hope and laughter are all found in captivating stories where real and astonishing things happen.Few women were so consistently published in the New Yorker and yet today Lavin’s work is largely unpublished and overlooked. This collection re-establishes her as one of the most genius, irresistible and memorable voices of the last century.SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY COLM TOÍBÍN‘She is, to come right out with it, magnificent’ New York Times‘Mary Lavin’s stories are a delight. They are delicate, but not too delicate to carry tragedy on one shoulder and comedy on the other’ Sunday Times ‘Lavin writes like a dream’ New York Times Book Review© Mary Lavin 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026
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