The Thing About December - Hardcover

Ryan, Donal

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1781620091 ISBN 13: 9781781620090

Publisher: Doubleday Ireland, 2014

Synopsis

‘He heard Daddy one time saying he was a grand quiet boy to Mother when he thought Johnsey couldn’t hear them talking. Mother must have been giving out about him being a gom and Daddy was defending him. He heard the fondness in Daddy’s voice. But you’d have fondness for an auld eejit of a crossbred pup that should have been drowned at birth.’

While the Celtic Tiger rages, and greed becomes the norm, Johnsey Cunliffe desperately tries to hold on to the familiar, even as he loses those who all his life have protected him from a harsh world. Village bullies and scheming land-grabbers stand in his way, no matter where he turns.
Set over the course of one year of Johnsey’s life, The Thing About December breathes with his grief, bewilderment, humour and agonizing self-doubt. This is a heart-twisting tale of a lonely man struggling to make sense of a world moving faster than he is.
Donal Ryan’s award-winning debut, The Spinning Heart, garnered unprecedented acclaim, and The Thing About December confirms his status as one of the best writers of his generation.

About this title

About the Author

Donal Ryan is from Nenagh in County Tipperary. His first two novels, The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December, and his short story collection A Slanting of the Sun, have all been published to major acclaim. The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland), and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize. The Thing About December was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and the title story of A Slanting of the Sun won the writing.ie Short Story of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. His third novel, All We Shall Know, will be published in autumn 2016. Donal holds a Writing Fellowship at the University of Limerick. He lives with his wife Anne Marie and their two children just outside Limerick City.

From the Back Cover

The Thing About December
‘Painfully moving . . . Ryan is indisputably carving his own terrain with these short, fierce books that strike at the heart of what it has meant to be Irish in recent times.’ – John Boyne, The Irish Times

‘Compelling and heartbreaking . . beautiful, yet simple and utterly convincing. . . . A powerful and satisfying read.’ – Sunday Times

‘Fully confirms the promise of his earlier novel.’ – Irish Independent


The Spinning Heart
Winner of the Guardian First Book Award 2013
Winner of Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2012
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013

‘The best first novel I’ve read for years and years and years.’ – Jennifer Johnston

‘An extraordinarily accomplished first novel… here is a new Irish writer of the very first order.’ – Declan Hughes, Sunday Independent

‘Compellingly humane . . . an exciting, relevant and believable contemporary novel’ – Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times

Edition details

• Publisher: Doubleday Ireland
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1781620091
• ISBN 13: 9781781620090
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 208