The Young Wan: An Agnes Browne Novel - Softcover

O'Carroll, Brendan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452284848 ISBN 13: 9780452284845

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2004

Synopsis

In The Mammy, star Irish comedian Brendan O'Carroll introduced fans to the earthy and exuberant Agnes Browne, a fiesty young widow struggling to raise an unruly, high-spirited brood in The Jarro, the gritty tenement heart of 1960s Dublin. Over the course of two subsequent novels, The Chisellers and The Granny, fans accompanied her through all her children's escapades and the other adversities that challenged her starch, street smarts, and wit. Soon there was a movie, Agnes Browne. But hungry fans wanted more.

Now, in The Young Wan, they have Agnes as even her children never saw her-a girl, a "young wan," growing up in the 1940s. The shy child Agnes Reddin and Marion Delany, destined to be her lifelong best friend, together survive the indignities and demands of schoolteacher nuns, unwelcome siblings, first jobs, first dances, and first encounters with the opposite sex. Agnes learns the street market trade from a tough ex-con and is about to marry the good-for-nothing charmer Redser Browne. But in a world where everyone knows everyone else's business, it's not only her motherwith a past of her own to recountwho fears Agnes will be turned away at the altar if she persists in wearing white. For within Agnes there buds already the first of the family to whom she'll become the ur-Irish mother.

Filled with O'Carroll's trademark wicked wit and loving, larger-than-life characters, The Young Wan reveals the inner workings of one family and onewoman who cheerfully and irreverently defy everything life throws at them.

About this title

Review:

Praise for The Mammy
"I think Brendan O'Carroll is Agnes Browne, and if he's not, he's done one hell of a job capturing the absolute essence of a widowed mother in working-class Dublin."--Anjelica Huston

"How to lose weight: Read The Mammy. You will laugh your arse off and your tears will do away with your water-retention problem. It is an uproariously funny account of growing up in inner-city Dublin--a laugh-out loud book with a Dickensian twist to it."--Malachy McCourt, author of A Monk Swimming

"Hilarious and irreverent. A must-read."--Gabriel Byrne

Praise for The Chisellers
"A brilliant book."--Sunday Independent (London)

"By turns funny, wise and heartbreaking, this Irish Tales of the City is O'Carroll's second book in his Mrs. Browne trilogy; the first, The Mammy, received high praise after publication in the U.S. last year. Featuring eccentric characters who are charming, irreverent and believable, the story continues in 1973 with Agnes Browne at center stage... This lively novel features a wedding, a funeral and an ending that will melt the hardest heart. Readers will eagerly await the third book in this series."--Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Granny
"O'Carroll is a popular stand-up comic, and he writes with an easy sense of humor... winning and likable."--Kirkus Reviews

"These Dubliners are irresistibly charming... Tales of working-class Irish life now fill bookshelves, but there's space aplenty for O'Carroll's sturdy contribution."--Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Young Wan
"An almost surefire winner... one of those books that demands to be read in one sitting."--The Irish Voice

About the Author:

Brendan O'Carroll, the youngest of eleven children, was born in Stonybatter, a North Dublin neighborhood, in 1955. He is an acclaimed playwright and Ireland's most popular stand-up comedian. The creator of a hugely successful Irish radio show, Mrs. Browne's Boys (the genesis of his novels), O'Carroll is also an actor and has a role in the upcoming film version of Angela's Ashes. All the books in his Mrs. Browne trilogy were #1 bestsellers in his native Ireland. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0452284848
• ISBN 13: 9780452284845
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224