#43 Sense of a Beginning

08/18/22 • 41 min

Happily ever afters don’t have to involve a fairy tale wedding followed by staying together for the sake of the children, come what may, says début author Cristín Leach.

The art critic speaks candidly about her marriage breakdown in her memoir, Negative Space. A text message pinging onto her phone marked the beginning of the end for her relationship.

Cristin also reflects on life and her relarionship to art and writing, and says: “I don’t feel that there’s any one reading for a work of art. Everyone who encounters music, poetry, books, paintings, films brings themselves to it. There’s something shared when we all encounter it.”

Negative Space by Cristín Leach is published by Merrion Press. More here: https://irishacademicpress.ie/product/negative-space/

Happily ever afters don’t have to involve a fairy tale wedding followed by staying together for the sake of the children, come what may, says début author Cristín Leach.

The art critic speaks candidly about her marriage breakdown in her memoir, Negative Space. A text message pinging onto her phone marked the beginning of the end for her relationship.

Negative Space by Cristín Leach is published by Merrion Press. More here: https://irishacademicpress.ie/product/negative-space/

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#42 Hidden Truths in Reissued Classics

“Fiction sometimes unearths truths – and truths we’re not even aware of knowing,” says novelist Catherine Dunne.

She’s talking about her novel, A Name For Himself, and Lia Mills’s novel Another Alice, reissued in new editions as part of the Arlen House Classic Literature.

Both were published originally in the 1990s, but their themes of coercive control and an abused childhood remain relevant today.

More info: http://arlenhouse.ie

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#44 A Royal Affair

One of history’s most famous royal love affairs is threaded through Emily Hourican’s latest novel.

The backdrop to The Other Guinness Girl is the 1936 abdication crisis, when the newly-crowned King Edward VIII surrendered this throne to marry his twice-divorced American lover, Wallis Simpson.

“What was it about her that so compelled the Prince of Wales? Why was he determined to give up everything for her?” asks Emily.

The Other Guinness Girl: A Question of Honour by Emily Hourican is published by Hachette Books Irelandhttps://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/emily-hourican/the-other-guinness-girl-a-question-of-honor/9781399708012/