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The Amusements
- Author
- Aingeala Flannery
- Narrator
- Dónall Ó Héallai, Clara Harte
- Publisher
- Penguin Books Ltd
- Publish Date
- 23 June 2022
- Run Time
- 5 hours 19 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
In the resort town of Tramore, County Waterford, visitors arrive in waves with the tourist season, reliving the best days of their childhoods at the seaside amusements. Local teenager Helen Grant is indifferent to the charm of her surroundings; infatuated with her glamorous classmate Stella Swaine, she yearns to escape with her to art college, and from there, the world. But leaving Tramore is easier said than done. With an alcoholic father and an unsympathetic mother, Helen's family life may shatter her dream, just when it seems to be within reach . . .
Following the Grant and Swaine families and their neighbours over three decades, The Amusements is an unforgettable story about roads taken and not taken. It is a brilliantly observed portrait of life in a small town.
'THIS BOOK is EVERYTHING. The characters are painfully, beautifully real, the writing is IMPECCABLE . . . I LOVED it' Marian Keyes
'Unputdownable . . . one of the best novels of the year' Sunday Independent
'Flannery's flawed, hopeful characters live and grow on the page' ANNE ENRIGHT
© Aingeala Flannery 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
Critics Review
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If you like dark humour, superbly drawn characters, caravan parks, fish suppers and slot machines, The Amusements is what you've been waiting for
Jan Carson
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Brilliant. Dramatic, heartfelt, sometimes shocking and sad
Irish Examiner
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Unputdownable . . . one of the best novels of the year
Sunday Independent
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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
Anne Enright
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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
Donal Ryan
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A cracker of a book. Think Kevin Barry crossed with Elizabeth Strout. The writing is that good
Kathleen Mac Machon
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[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
Louise Nealon
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A fascinating portrait of small-town life. A joy to read
Sunday Independent
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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
Nuala O'Connor
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A vibrant, evocative debut that brings the exploits of an Irish coastal town brilliantly to life
Sarah Gilmartin
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Aingeala Flannery
- Narrator
- Dónall Ó Héallai, Clara Harte
- Duration
- 5 hours 19 minutes
- Release Date
- 23 June 2022
- ISBN
- 9780241997185
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Penguin Books Ltd
- Genre
- Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary, Family life fiction, Modern and Contemporary romance, Intergenerational relationships: advice and issues
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.In the resort town of Tramore, County Waterford, visitors arrive in waves with the tourist season, reliving the best days of their childhoods at the seaside amusements. Local teenager Helen Grant is indifferent to the charm of her surroundings; infatuated with her glamorous classmate Stella Swaine, she yearns to escape with her to art college, and from there, the world. But leaving Tramore is easier said than done. With an alcoholic father and an unsympathetic mother, Helen's family life may shatter her dream, just when it seems to be within reach . . .Following the Grant and Swaine families and their neighbours over three decades, The Amusements is an unforgettable story about roads taken and not taken. It is a brilliantly observed portrait of life in a small town.'Brilliant . . . her sentences crackle with life, energy and devastating insight into the human condition. She writes with a rare combination of compassion and black humour. Her characters live on in my mind like people I have always known' LIA MILLS'Effortless, perceptive, and hugely entertaining - I loved it' DONAL RYAN'Flannery has a glinting eye . . . the writing, so true to small-town life, is both shrewd and enlarging . . . her flawed, hopeful characters live and grow on the page' ANNE ENRIGHT© Aingeala Flannery 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
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