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Mouthing

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Mouthing

By: Orla Mackey
Narrated by: Stephen Hogan, Jessica Regan
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued, a multigenerational portrait of small-town life in Ireland from a refreshing new talent in literary fiction

Welcome to Ballyrowan.

This sleepy corner of rural Ireland may seem tranquil, but scratch the surface and you'll find a hotbed of gossip and intrigue - endless material for mouthing - and a town full of people only too happy to oblige in spreading the bad news.

Narrated by several generations of villagers, Mouthing traces the fortunes of one small community from the mid-20th century to the early 21st, in a series of highly confessional and darkly hilarious monologues. The good people of Ballyrowan delight in twisting the knife, in tormenting one another, in perfecting the art of schadenfreude. And, it becomes clear, none of them are entirely reliable witnesses.

As each character offers their version of 'the truth', upending our assumptions at every turn, we see how feuds are passed down through the generations, how families are estranged or reunited and fortunes made or lost, how strict social expectations can shift and loosen over decades (and how some things remain stubbornly unchanged). And we see how secret hopes and private sorrows, triumph and humiliation, pleasure and grief are all absorbed into the merciless chorus of mouthing.

Mouthing is an acerbic, unsentimental love letter to rural Irish life, where everyone knows everyone else's business and everyone has an opinion on it - where 'community' is both a lifeboat and a life sentence.

©2024 Orla Mackey (P)2024 Penguin Audio
Family Life Literary Fiction Small Town & Rural Village Witty Funny Ireland
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Critic reviews

'Terrifically sharp-witted and deeply moving, Orla Mackey's novel crackles with intelligence and life.' (Chetna Maroo, author of 'Western Lane')

'Mouthing is full of disgrace, inherited trauma and family secrets that spill all over the back roads of Ossory. A book of testimonies and intertwined destinies that will make you laugh, because if you didn't you'd surely cry.' (Aingeala Flannery, author of 'The Amusements')

'Intimate and panoramic, a raucous gathering of voices: full of humour, pierced with longing, caught between connection and claustrophobia. Compassionate but clear-eyed, angry and elegiac, Mouthing is a portrait of our confused and often destructive yearning for grace.' (Colin Walsh, author of 'Kala')

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The story and reality of it was engrossing

No complaints…can’t recommend it highly enough. Especially if you’re from ‘the country’!
It should be on the Leaving Cert curriculum!

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In a word, beautiful.

I loved this book. Orla Mackey paints characters and stories using light strokes. Each stroke delicately layers up to a complex picture of what it is to be human. The internal monologues of her characters, often giving conflicting viewpoints of the same set of facts, resonate with the human music of my childhood. These feel like people that I know and knew, but now I know them better.
She captures the changing and yet constant versions of Ireland I have identified with but would be unable to describe. But this is only part of her gift, her real genius is in capturing the motivations of the human heart, the struggles we endure and the damage done. Another author might have made this turgid and laborious but in "Mouthing" the humour, follies and small kindnesses of humans balance the scales so that tragedy, comedy and life are inseparable. It is a universal story in a small setting. And like the lives she sets out for us, it is a beautiful and complex thing.

Her narrators, Jessica Regan and Stephen Hogan do an excellent job of bringing her characters to life in the audiobook.

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Loved it

Excellent storytelling. Gets the small town psyche just right. The comedy and tragedy - I came away thinking it was a great advert for therapy!

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Loved this

Loved this book, very funny/witty. A great way with words. short and sweet, left wanting more.

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