Christine Dwyer Hickey – författare

Farley, a seventy-five year old man, lies on his bathroom floor, having just suffered a stroke. As his mind sifts through his past, we are introduced to the loyal friend he once was, his loving wife, the city of Dublin, and the question of how this very ordinary man has become so lonely at the end of his life. Told in reverse, from Farley's penultimate day to decades before, Christine Dwyer Hickey's bestseller is a jarring look at a life up close. First published in 2011, The Cold Eye of Heaven shows Dwyer Hickey's lyrical prose at its best: rendering sorrow, joy, wisdom, and humor in equal measure. Acutely insightful, this is an eerily accurate portrait of what it's like to grow old.

After more than thirty years in New York City, Elaine Nichols returns home to Ireland to her invalid father and his geriatric Alsatian dog. As a pregnant teenager she was sent away to avoid scandal and possible legal consequences. Shuttling back and forth between two time zones-the 1970s and the present-and set in a Cheever-esque suburb of sadness and shame, The Lives of Women deals with the savagery of respectability, betrayal, and the desperation that ensues when a sixteen-year-old girl gets pregnant and feels she has no one to help her, apart from her friends. Hickey (The Cold Eye of Heaven, Last Train from Liguria) shows herself to be a storyteller of rare ability and a stylist of clarifying beauty.

The stunning new novel from Christine Dwyer Hickey, bestselling author of Last Train from Liguria.'One of Ireland's most lauded modern writers, Christine Dwyer Hickey teases out the strands of her story... It leaves the reader with the aftertaste of regret for their own what might have been...' - Daily MailFollowing a long absence spent in New York, Elaine Nichols returns to her childhood home to live with her invalid father and his geriatric Alsatian dog. The house backing on to theirs is sold and as she watches the old furniture stack up on the lawn, Elaine is brought back to a summer in the 1970s. She is almost sixteen again and this small out-of-town estate is an enclave for women and children while the men are mysterious shadows who leave every day for the outside world. The women are isolated but keep their loneliness and frustrations hidden behind a veneer of suburban respectability. When an American divorcee and her daughter move into the estate, the veneer begins to crack. The women learn how to socialise, how to drink martinis in the afternoon, how to care less about their wifely and maternal duties. While the women are distracted, Elaine and her friends find their own entry into the adult world and the result is a tragic event that will mark the rest of Elaine's life and be the cause of her long and guilt-ridden exile.Insightful and full of suspense, this is an uncompromising portrayal of the suburbs and the cruelties brought about by the demands of respectability.

WINNER OF THE WALTER SCOTT HISTORICAL PRIZE FOR FICTION, 2020WINNER OF THE DALKEY LITERARY AWARD FOR NOVEL OF THE YEAR, 2020SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS, 2019An Irish Independent and Irish Times Book of the Year, 2019From the author of Tatty, the Dublin: One City One Book 2020 choice________________________'It is a long time since I have read such a fine novel or one that I have enjoyed quite so much.' Irish Times1950: late summer season on Cape Cod. Michael, a ten-year-old boy, is spending the summer with Richie and his glamorous but troubled mother. Left to their own devices, the boys meet a couple living nearby - the artists Jo and Edward Hopper - and an unlikely friendship is forged.She, volatile, passionate and often irrational, suffers bouts of obsessive sexual jealousy. He, withdrawn and unwell, depressed by his inability to work, becomes besotted by Richie's frail and beautiful Aunt Katherine who has not long to live - an infatuation he shares with young Michael.A novel of loneliness and regret, the legacy of World War II and the ever-changing concept of the American Dream.'A brilliant portrait... With a beguiling grace and a deceptive simplicity, Christine Dwyer Hickey reminds us that the past is never far away - rather, it constantly surrounds us, suspends us, haunts us.' Colum McCann

'Sprawling yet intimate' Guardian'Huge of heart and soaring of soul' CLAIRE KILROY'A profound love story...Like Barbara Kingsolver, Hickey captures the pulse of the living moment' COLUM McCANN'A London novel that captures the living moment of the city across decades' PAUL LYNCH1979. In the vast and often unforgiving city of London, two Irish outsiders seeking refuge find one another: Milly, a teenage runaway, and Pip, a young boxer full of anger and potential who is beginning to drink it all away.Over the decades their lives follow different paths, interweaving from time to time, often in one another's sight, always on one another's mind, yet rarely together. Forty years on, Milly is clinging onto the only home she's ever really known while Pip, haunted by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, traipses the streets of London and wrestles with the life of the recovering alcoholic. And between them, perhaps uncrossable, lies the unspoken span of their lives. Dark and brave, this epic novel offers a rich and moving portrait of an ever-changing city, and a profound inquiry into character, loneliness and the nature of love.

'Sprawling yet intimate' Guardian'Huge of heart and soaring of soul' CLAIRE KILROY'A profound love story...Like Barbara Kingsolver, Hickey captures the pulse of the living moment' COLUM McCANN'A London novel that captures the living moment of the city across decades' PAUL LYNCH1979. In the vast and often unforgiving city of London, two Irish outsiders seeking refuge find one another: Milly, a teenage runaway, and Pip, a young boxer full of anger and potential who is beginning to drink it all away.Over the decades their lives follow different paths, interweaving from time to time, often in one another's sight, always on one another's mind, yet rarely together. Forty years on, Milly is clinging onto the only home she's ever really known while Pip, haunted by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, traipses the streets of London and wrestles with the life of the recovering alcoholic. And between them, perhaps uncrossable, lies the unspoken span of their lives. Dark and brave, this epic novel offers a rich and moving portrait of an ever-changing city, and a profound inquiry into character, loneliness and the nature of love.

'Sprawling yet intimate' Guardian'Huge of heart and soaring of soul' CLAIRE KILROY'A profound love story...Like Barbara Kingsolver, Hickey captures the pulse of the living moment' COLUM McCANN'A London novel that captures the living moment of the city across decades' PAUL LYNCH1979. In the vast and often unforgiving city of London, two Irish outsiders seeking refuge find one another: Milly, a teenage runaway, and Pip, a young boxer full of anger and potential who is beginning to drink it all away.Over the decades their lives follow different paths, interweaving from time to time, often in one another's sight, always on one another's mind, yet rarely together. Forty years on, Milly is clinging onto the only home she's ever really known while Pip, haunted by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, traipses the streets of London and wrestles with the life of the recovering alcoholic. And between them, perhaps uncrossable, lies the unspoken span of their lives. Dark and brave, this epic novel offers a rich and moving portrait of an ever-changing city, and a profound inquiry into character, loneliness and the nature of love.

In 1933, Bella Stuart leaves her quiet London life to move to Italy to tutor the child of a beautiful Jewish heiress and an elderly Italian aristocrat. Living at the family's summer home, Bella's reserve softens as she comes to love her young charge, and find friendship with Maestro Edward, his enigmatic music teacher.But as the decade draws to an end and fascism tightens its grip on Europe, the fact that Alec is Jewish places his life in grave danger. Bella and Edward take the boy on a terrifying train journey out of Italy - one they have no reason to believe any of them will survive...

Farley is an elderly Dublin man, frail in body but sharp as a tack. Waking in the middle of the night, he finds himself lying paralyzed on the cold bathroom floor. And so his mind begins to move backwards, taking us with him. As Farley unravels the warp and weft of his life, he relives its loves, losses and betrayals with the darkly comic wit of a true Dubliner. For this is also Dublin's story, the city Farley has seen through poverty and prosperity, boom and bust - each the other's constant companion during his seventy-five years.

The stunning new novel from Christine Dwyer Hickey, bestselling author of Last Train from Liguria.'One of Ireland's most lauded modern writers, Christine Dwyer Hickey teases out the strands of her story... It leaves the reader with the aftertaste of regret for their own what might have been...' - Daily MailFollowing a long absence spent in New York, Elaine Nichols returns to her childhood home to live with her invalid father and his geriatric Alsatian dog. The house backing on to theirs is sold and as she watches the old furniture stack up on the lawn, Elaine is brought back to a summer in the 1970s. She is almost sixteen again and this small out-of-town estate is an enclave for women and children while the men are mysterious shadows who leave every day for the outside world. The women are isolated but keep their loneliness and frustrations hidden behind a veneer of suburban respectability. When an American divorcee and her daughter move into the estate, the veneer begins to crack. The women learn how to socialise, how to drink martinis in the afternoon, how to care less about their wifely and maternal duties. While the women are distracted, Elaine and her friends find their own entry into the adult world and the result is a tragic event that will mark the rest of Elaine's life and be the cause of her long and guilt-ridden exile.Insightful and full of suspense, this is an uncompromising portrayal of the suburbs and the cruelties brought about by the demands of respectability.

WINNER OF THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTIONWINNER OF THE DALKEY LITERARY AWARD FOR NOVEL OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDSAn Irish Independent and Irish Times Book of the Year________________________'It is a long time since I have read such a fine novel or one that I have enjoyed quite so much.' Irish Times1950: late summer season on Cape Cod. Michael, a ten-year-old boy, is spending the summer with Richie and his glamorous but troubled mother. Left to their own devices, the boys meet a couple living nearby - the artists Jo and Edward Hopper - and an unlikely friendship is forged.She, volatile, passionate and often irrational, suffers bouts of obsessive sexual jealousy. He, withdrawn and unwell, depressed by his inability to work, becomes besotted by Richie's frail and beautiful Aunt Katherine who has not long to live - an infatuation he shares with young Michael.A novel of loneliness and regret, the legacy of World War II and the ever-changing concept of the American Dream.'A brilliant portrait... With a beguiling grace and a deceptive simplicity, Christine Dwyer Hickey reminds us that the past is never far away - rather, it constantly surrounds us, suspends us, haunts us.' Colum McCann

Farley is an elderly Irishman, frail in body but sharp as a tack. Waking in the middle of the night he finds himself lying paralyzed on the cold bathroom floor. And so his mind begins to move backwards, taking us with him into his past. As Farley unravels the warp and weft of his life, he relives the loves, losses and betrayals with the darkly comic wit of a true Dubliner. For this is also Dublin's story, the city Farley has seen through poverty and prosperity, boom and bust - each the other's constant companion throughout his seventy-five years.Epic in scope, rich in detail, and shot through with black humour, The Cold Eye of Heaven is a bitter-sweet paean to Dublin and a unique meditation on the life of one of its citizens.