Christina McKenna writes character-led Irish fiction that mixes rural comedy with loneliness, grief and the lasting damage caused by institutions and family secrets. The Misremembered Man is set in 1970s Northern Ireland and brings together Jamie McCloone, a farmer scarred by a childhood in an orphanage, and Lydia Devine, a sheltered teacher who answers a lonely-hearts advertisement. The Disenchanted Widow moves into 1980s Belfast as Bessie Halstone flees with her son and becomes entangled with money connected to an IRA robbery, while The Godforsaken Daughter follows another woman trying to make a new life in the fictional community of Tailorstown. McKenna’s novels use dialect, eccentric neighbours and gentle humour without ignoring poverty, sectarian tension or abuse. McKenna’s Tailorstown books sit beside Irish rural fiction where courtship and neighbourly comedy coexist with institutional abuse, bereavement and sectarian tension. Read more Less
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