Thirsty Ghosts by Emer Martin

Thirsty Ghosts by Emer MartinEmer Martin's is a radical, vital voice in Irish writing, as she challenges the history of silence, institutional lies, evasion and the mistreatment of women across mid to late twentieth century Ireland. Two families inhabit this immersive polyvocal work, an intergenerational saga announced with The Cruelty Men (2018) and continued here as punk rockers and Magdalene laundries spiral into a post colonial Ireland still haunted by its tribal undertow.

Let's hope so - otherwise the next child a gruesome giant guzzles could be YOU

Using their own special tools

society is asking

he shows that while everything has changed

the character who lives in its pages

All across the sky

and how the ghosts of the past return to shape the present

It is a family story of war and love

This collection shows that no matter how big or small

writers and historians

so many of us come back to an overriding feeling of hopelessness

' Scarlett Curtis