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Malarky

Anakana Schofield (Goodreads Author)

3.42 · Rating details · 487 ratings · 104 reviews

Our Woman refuses to be sunk by what life is about to serve her. She’s just caught her son Jimmy in the barn with another man. She’s been accosted by Red the Twit, who claims to have done the unmentionable with her husband. And now her son’s gone and joined the only group that will have him: an army division on its way to Afghanistan.

Setting aside her prim and proper ways, ...more

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Paperback, 225 pages

Published April 3rd 2012 by Biblioasis

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Nov 01, 2012 Shanna Germain rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nanolomo-books

There are those who want their grief, their life, their love, served up on a pristine plate with a proper napkin.

If you are one of those people, this book is not for you.

If, however, you are someone who understands that life is messy, that being a woman and a mother is never clean, that we humans are a beautiful and filthy bunch, then Malarky is the kind of book you will read once, then read again, then buy for everyone you know and love. Half of those people will look at you like you're insane ...more

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Apr 08, 2012 Tricia Dower rated it it was amazing

This book might not be everybody’s cup of tea and I can’t image how a copyeditor managed to tackle it with changes from present to past tense in a single sentence and the narrator speaking of herself in both first and third person, often in the same chapter (or “Episode” as a chapter is called). I struggled with this at first but quickly gave myself over to the experience of being inside the head of a woman with a wry sense of humour who has been driven quite mad with hurt, grief (she’s lost so This book might not be everybody’s cup of tea and I can’t image how a copyeditor managed to tackle it with changes from present to past tense in a single sentence and the narrator speaking of herself in both first and third person, often in the same chapter (or “Episode” as a chapter is called). I struggled with this at first but quickly gave myself over to the experience of being inside the head of a woman with a wry sense of humour who has been driven quite mad with hurt, grief (she’s lost so much), regret and longing. I had to put the book down at times because the woman’s honesty was painful, almost too intimate. Since you know what’s happened almost from the beginning, I wasn’t turning the page because of a suspenseful plot. But I returned to it, after pauses, to learn how Our Woman, as the narrator refers to herself, gained her equilibrium and found her path forward; how audaciously she did so! The last two lines are masterful and moving: “It’s beautiful when it all makes sense, so it is. Occasionally it all makes sense, just for a moment.”

I applaud Schofield for portraying an older woman without resorting to stereotypes, for her empathy in understanding how betrayed this woman would feel at her husband’s infidelity after having waited fifteen years for him to marry her in the first place and having taken care of him in the way she believed she was expected to. It’s easy to judge Our Woman, as her husband did, as having coddled her son and made him “soft,” and to bristle at how dismissive she is about her daughters. But Schofield helps us see that this blind love of mother for son is the fulfillment of a need unmet in Our Woman’s marriage. I loved the author’s deft use of defining detail to let us into Our Woman’s life in the village, on the farm, among her narrow group of friends. This is a subtle book that makes you work a bit to figure out what’s going on but it’s all there if you look. One of the most original books I've ever read. I honestly don’t see how Schofield could have done it any better.
...more

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Jul 09, 2012 Kerry Clare rated it it was amazing

If Hagar Shipley met Stella Gibbons, the end result might be Anakana Schofield’s Malarky, but then again, it probably wouldn’t be, because Malarky refuses to be what you think it is. And moreover, it probably wouldn’t be because the book is meant to be chock-a-block with allusions to James Joyce and Thomas Hardy. Don’t tell anybody, but I still haven’t read Ulysses (and hence the Gibbons instead of the primary sources), but I have read Malarky, and it was brilliant, which I know for certain even If Hagar Shipley met Stella Gibbons, the end result might be Anakana Schofield’s Malarky, but then again, it probably wouldn’t be, because Malarky refuses to be what you think it is. And moreover, it probably wouldn’t be because the book is meant to be chock-a-block with allusions to James Joyce and Thomas Hardy. Don’t tell anybody, but I still haven’t read Ulysses (and hence the Gibbons instead of the primary sources), but I have read Malarky, and it was brilliant, which I know for certain even with the burden of my literary ignorance. And that I can pronounce a book as wonderful even whilst unable to access its higher planes of greatness is certainly saying something for the book itself, which is mostly, “You’ll like it too.”

Schofield’s heroine, Our Woman, if she can be summed up at all, will be summed up with the explanation she gives for the period of despair she suffered after the birth of her first child: “Then I had a cup of tea and six weeks later, I felt better.” There is so much that goes unspoken of, silences to be filled with the rudiments of life as a farming wife, of motherhood, of friendship with her gang of local women (“…not a day passed when several of them didn’t meet. They were like tight ligaments in each other’s life, contracting, extending and sustaining the muscle of each other, house to house, tongue to ear”).

The bottom falls out, however, when she discovers her son up to unmentionable things with the neighbour’s boy. Our Woman’s stress is compounded by a woman she meets in town who confesses to her that she’s been doing unmentionable things with Our Woman’s husband. In response, Our Woman goes out into the world determined to do a few unmentionable things of her own to learn a thing or two, but the situation becomes more complicated– her son takes off to join the US army and local rumour has it that he did it to get away from her, and also her obsession with what she saw him doing becomes a kind of fascination, a desire to be close to him in an impossible way that suggests local rumours could be true.

But it’s hard to tell. Malarky is very much of the world– the Irish economy, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the plight of immigrants, mental illness, grief– and yet, its interiority is impermeable. When Our Woman spies her son shirtless in the barn, she notes, “He must have been freezing, his pale body bleary and quivering, trousers at his ankles.” However perversely, she is ever a mother, urging on a sweater. But she’s not just a comic figure; Schofield evokes Our Women with remarkable sympathy: “Mainly she had wanted to hit him about the head and shout these aren’t the things I have planned for you.” Malarky is a journey beyond the limits of love, an equally sad and hilarious portrait of motherhood.

“Malarky is like nothing else, and what everything should be,” is something I wrote down this weekend. First, because it’s as funny as it’s dark, and also because it dares readers to be brave enough to follow along an unconventional narrative. Though the winding path is only deceptively tricky– Our Woman’s voice is instantly familiar, and the shifting perspectives remain so intimate and immediate that the reader follows. Consenting to be led, of course, which is the magic of Malarky. This is a book that will leave you demanding more of everything else you read. ...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Kelly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: firstreads

Anakana Schofield's debut novel is a beautifully crafted exploration of grief, age, family, and sexuality. The story begins almost at the end, with Our Woman recently widowed. The narrator moves back and forth in time to piece together the story of the loss of her husband and son. As the story is drawn out, she discovers her husband's infidelities and her son's sexuality, and deals with it by taking a lover. Though she goes about it in an unusual way, she comes into her own just as she's being ...more

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Jun 05, 2018 Anni rated it really liked it

Don’t be fooled by the comic eccentricities of Irish rural life depicted in the narrator’s inner monologues. Referring to herself as 'Our Woman' and her dull clod of a husband as 'Himself', this middle-aged Irish farmer's wife has her resilience worn away by grief and disappointment, tripping the narrative over into much darker and surreal territory. A modern day Molly Bloom, 'Our Woman' is a character whose voice you won’t easily forget.

Reviewed for Whichbook.net

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Oct 20, 2015 Krista rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015, can-con, irishfic

Before she moves quietly off, she takes another look. She has to see it again. They're still at the same malarky. It's her son, her boy, and he's shaking himself stronger against that young fella. He cannot bury himself deep enough in him. Flagrant; he's got him by the hips, rattling in and out of them, almost like he's steering a wheelbarrow that's stuck on a stone, going no place.

Our Woman (Phil, or Philomena, or even, if you prefer, Kathleen) is a sixty-year-old Irish farmwife who is ...more

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Feb 15, 2014 Kieran Walsh rated it did not like it

Sometimes there’s nothing for it but to admit defeat. I spent weeks pouring over this one and can’t bring myself to say that it was enjoyable. Actually I felt angry having finished it (and not because I don’t know how to go about getting my three weeks back). I’m angry because its another Irish writer who thinks she’s the next James Joyce. It reminded me of the Emperor’s New Clothes. She’s so brilliant, her style so revolutionary that she actually crossed to the other side and God dang it she’s Sometimes there’s nothing for it but to admit defeat. I spent weeks pouring over this one and can’t bring myself to say that it was enjoyable. Actually I felt angry having finished it (and not because I don’t know how to go about getting my three weeks back). I’m angry because its another Irish writer who thinks she’s the next James Joyce. It reminded me of the Emperor’s New Clothes. She’s so brilliant, her style so revolutionary that she actually crossed to the other side and God dang it she’s going to prove her superiority by making sure not one of us have a clue what she’s writing about. The readers, however, are benched on both sides and you’d better be with the team that’s lauding Anakana Schofield’s genius. ‘Its elusive’. ‘Its so elusive its brilliant’. The main character’s brilliancy is her slide into lunacy, they say but that’s ok because nobody can rationalize with a lunatic. Staccato phrases and words are the bread and butter of mental depravity and we get to enjoy it all. We have the privilege of bearing witness to episodes that have no sequence and get to translate it all. We scramble to find some lucidity (which is a style I’ll give her credit for) in the dialogue so that we can understand the story, but as it progressed this lucidity became less and less frequent.

This is Ballina.
our woman is reporting to you from Ballina, where she is walking boldly into the PJ section of Pennys wtih one thing in mind. I want to find The Syrian, if he is to be found. I want to make it clear today I am officially looking for him. if I should die crossing the road, it should be known I was searching for him. I am deliberate in this action. I am not seeking revenge. I am absolute in what i see. I seek The Syrian. I seek the Syrian for my own purposes. I seek the Syrian to give me an answer.

It didn’t have to be an Irish landscape. I didn’t feel anything identifiable in the dialogue. Colloquialisms were somewhat forced and the lack of sympathy from everybody made character redemption impossible. Its lonesomeness added to the tragedy of the situation after Jimmy (Our Woman’s son) dies in Afghanistan. Her descent into depravity was heady while her sexual adventures seemed forced and unexplainable. If the attempt was depicting a middle aged woman, who’s lived a life emotionless, as sexually free, it failed for the simple reason that she’s nothing other than mad!

I think, however, I’m most likely and honestly angry at myself because I tried really hard to ‘get it’. I don’t like a book to get the better of me and Schofield won this round.

I’ll conclude with the only memorable line, which happens to be the very last one:

It’s beautiful when it all makes sense, so it is. Occasionally it makes sense, just for a moment. ...more

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Jul 13, 2013 Ken Sparling rated it it was amazing

It's like she's got this thing dancing inside her, rattling the words right out of her. You see this chaos of material flying forth toward you, but you can't see through the chaos to the force that animates it. You love the chaos, but it's the force that is the soul of the thing, the driving power that attracts you, draws you in and makes you well over with love again. It's what you can't ever know that you want so desperately to encounter, and now here it is concealed in plain sight behind ...more

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May 17, 2013 Deanna McFadden rated it really liked it

Oh, be still my heart this book. THIS BOOK. It's a dense novel but every word seems carefully chosen, it swells, how it swells the heart. Our Woman, a widow, having to come to terms with the malarky her son, her one son (she has two other children, daughters), gets up to with other men (he's gay; she's finding it hard to come to terms with), must face something even more heartbreaking when he goes off and joins the US army. Schofield's way with words consistently amazed me, and even the ...more

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May 17, 2012 Mary rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-2012

Strange, very strange, but brilliant for the honest, unforgettable, and occasionally very funny voice of Phil ("Our Woman") as she meanders through twenty "episodes" of grief-induced confusion. This is difficult reading, confusing at times because the narrative moves backwards and forwards without warning and the narrator refers to herself regularly in the third person, but the story is emotional and achingly honest. A brave little book. Worth reading and worth re-reading.

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Jul 25, 2013 Sherry rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-this-year

I loved this book. I was astounded by the voice of Our Woman - her thoughts about life stream out of her - uncontrollably at times. This novel is funny and tragic - it is aggressive yet loving. The last sentence brought tears to my eyes . Thank you Anakana Schofield for a beautiful reading experience

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Jan 16, 2013 Melinda rated it liked it

Shelves: book-groups

Initially when I read this book, it bothered me. It was uncomfortable. It felt dismal. It was almost too real. These are real characters. They feel like "real people" Not glamorized characters that appeal to a movie set. These characters are "regular" people with some surprises. Our Woman has courage but she is also tragic in her loneliness, and her striving to make sense of it. In this way, she is not typical at all. I initially gave this book two stars, because it is not a book I "enjoyed". It Initially when I read this book, it bothered me. It was uncomfortable. It felt dismal. It was almost too real. These are real characters. They feel like "real people" Not glamorized characters that appeal to a movie set. These characters are "regular" people with some surprises. Our Woman has courage but she is also tragic in her loneliness, and her striving to make sense of it. In this way, she is not typical at all. I initially gave this book two stars, because it is not a book I "enjoyed". It was "uncomfortable" and left me feeling depressed; however, it was masterfully written, artful, thoughful, creative, and intelligently orchestrated. It deserves more than two-three stars, for its art and its heart; however, at this point in my life, I did not love it..only because of the complexity of how it made me feel. (that makes it a very good book in that sense) --just not one that I "enjoyed" at this point. It certainly struck cords enough in me, though, to even write a review! My reaction, I expect may evolve later and I may alter this review yet again.

(earlier reactions below):

This is an initial review of a gut reaction I had to the book. I did not like the main character or her husband or her son. I thought it was a bit "icky" I understand the protagonist was going against the grain of what was expected of her and she was surprising in the way her mind worked and that she was not entirely in her right mind. Still, most of the time I was reading this book I felt like I was wasting my time. This book was doing nothing for me in any good way at all. I did not even enjoy reading it. Perhaps I did not "get it"..but I didn't really even want to "get it" because the characters were so blah to me.

(later) after a book discussion: I figured out why this book bothered me. I like books generally that have a heroine that comes out of the adversity empowered somehow. Books where the protagonist is stuck and barely find insight leave me feeling disheartened. This protagonist is quirky, daring, rebellious, unconventional in her pain, but she is still stuck at the end..and it seems she was perhaps quite disillusioned. It is unclear that she views her own reality clearly. I do find myself doubting her interpretation of her reality, which I am sure I am supposed to doubt. I feel empathy for her, because she is so lonely, but I feel pity for her for she seems to me to be so lost. This must have been a very difficult book to write. creating these characters does not seem simple at all. the point of view and complex literary conventions are quite remarkable. It is just not a story I enjoyed reading and I walked away feeling let down.

Later February review: I think I was unfair rating this book so negatively.. It is a book that needs to be digested and can feel uncomfortable. It is sad. It is very emotional, but it is real too. It is not a light read. It made me feel sad. I did not LOVE the book so I can't rate it highly, but it was definitely not a bad book. It is very well written and it brings awareness to a life struggle that I am sure is very real to many people. I think I just wanted a book with a happier ending at the time I was reading it. I wanted more hope. I didn't want to think about life being that dismal for anyone. (that is where my discomfort came from) ...more

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Jun 26, 2012 Barbara McVeigh rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, can-lit

Despair and Dignity: Anakana Schofield’s inaugural novel, Malarky

Darkly humourous, Malarky is about the struggle to understand this thing called life. Set in rural County Mayo, Ireland, the story concerns Our Woman, Philomena as she reels from a blender of shocks: her son’s homosexuality, being told that her husband’s having an affair by his God-fearing mistress, and the death of the two most important men in her life.

The book is about grief, longing, the closeting of sexuality—any sexuality—and ...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Sze Yen rated it really liked it

I picked this book up because of the good reviews I saw and heard from others, I rarely (almost never) buy a paperback book, especially a debut novel. But I did, and I think I made a good move.

This is a hard book to rate. It took me a relatively long time to finish a book of this length - due to the style, slang, etc. For this, I want to rate it 1 star, but. I am so amazed by the characters in this book, how real they are, as if they are people I've known, or people being copied from my brain ...more

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Mar 25, 2017 Alexis rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2017

I dipped into this book a few years ago, and I thought I wasn't going to enjoy it, so I never finished. But I read it for Canada After Reads, and really got into it. I loved the character's voice, her challenges, the structure and the humour. I had to pay close attention to some of it because of both the slang and the structure, but I thought it was incredibly well done.

Planning to read Martin John now. :)

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Nov 20, 2016 Paul Fulcher rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016

"- Men, I said. Naked men. At each other all the time, all day long. I can't get it out of my head.

- Well now, she said and fell silent.

She had to have been asking the Almighty for help, until finally she could think of no explanation and her recommendation was to scrub the kitchen floor very vigorously and see would a bit of distraction help."

Anakana Schofield's Martin John was a well-deserved shortlistee for the 2016 Goldsmiths Prize and the eponymous subject of that novel features as a ...more

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Jun 29, 2012 Cheryl rated it did not like it

When I first read the summary for this book, I thought it sounded interesting. Not something that I usually would go for but I am willing to go outside of my box and try new authors and books. This is how I have discovered some good ones. Sadly, I found myself not being able to get into this book. The first person talk, I did a little bit of an issue with in the beginning but then I got used to it. I kind of found it intriguing like thought bubbles. Like I was reading the woman's thoughts. This ...more

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Oct 08, 2012 Jackie rated it really liked it

Although relatively short, this was a challenging read due to the unique voice of Our Woman. Some lines were so marvelous they had to be reread- "Aine's questions arrive like blood sausage on plates for hungry men." I became fascinated by Our Woman because of her strength and personality. Sometimes I drop books because the characters are flat, I fail to "buy in" to their hopes, dreams, and the things that make them tick. I was sold when it came to Our Woman, she was almost too real. As I sat on ...more

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May 20, 2012 Meagan Kashty rated it really liked it

Set in modern day Ireland, Malarky is a story told in episodes of one woman's attempt to deal with grief. Our woman — or Phil — transitions from a traditional house wife, whose only ambition is to please her husband and children, to a woman on a mission to achieve independence. Told in a variety of different voices, the reader is subject to the desperation and confusion Our Woman faces on her journey.
Quirky, and at times laugh-out-loud funny, Malarky gives an interesting perspective to a story ...more

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Jul 18, 2012 Donna Bryant rated it did not like it

This book was aptly named, it was pure malarky, intact, it stunk. I know many people from Ireland and not one of them speaks the way Ms. Schofield writes. The book was unbelievable, incoherent, confusing and very hard to follow. I can't believe it won any awards or made it to any best-seller list.

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Jul 29, 2013 Elaine Kelly rated it really liked it

At times laugh aloud funny, at others quietly poignant. Real characters, some of whom I felt I'd met.

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Apr 15, 2013 Patricia L. added it · review of another edition

This book sings with humanity. It is unexpected. I look forward to reading it again. I will definitely buy anything Anakana Schofield writes from now on.

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Jul 25, 2013 Antonomasia marked it as to-read

Shelves: ireland, decade-2010s, el

I like this article, and she's quite funny: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/...

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Jan 06, 2019 Dorothyanne Brown rated it it was amazing

One of those books that hangs loose in your head, rattled around a bit, then shoots a shaft of light through your heart. The tale is of a woman and her family- she is an unreliable narrator and so fascinating- she is lonely and destroyed by her loneliness but rather than wallow, she takes a sort of mad control of herself and those about her. She does not go quietly.
I loved all the expressions that come out of her mind, “our woman”, and the thoughts. I felt for her as she becomes unhinged, loses ...more

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Oct 15, 2012 christa rated it liked it

In the first episode, Our Woman is newly widowed and also has a freshly dead son. She’s meeting with a counselor referred to as Grief. She’s having dreams, Our Woman confesses. Naked men having at each other. Grief’s response: Clean the kitchen floor. The next best thing, turn to God.

Ankana Schofield’s debut novel “Malarky” is told in 20 non-chronological periods of change in Our Woman’s life. She’s living in rural Ireland and married to a chilly, awful, maybe attractive man who counts on her In the first episode, Our Woman is newly widowed and also has a freshly dead son. She’s meeting with a counselor referred to as Grief. She’s having dreams, Our Woman confesses. Naked men having at each other. Grief’s response: Clean the kitchen floor. The next best thing, turn to God.

Ankana Schofield’s debut novel “Malarky” is told in 20 non-chronological periods of change in Our Woman’s life. She’s living in rural Ireland and married to a chilly, awful, maybe attractive man who counts on her for his creature comforts and the occasional screw. They have three children: Two girls that are barely mentioned and Our Woman’s pride, Jimmy, who she has seen getting all up in a neighbor boy down by the barn. This is not information that is going to sit well with Our Woman’s husband and she she asks him to keep it quiet. The realization that he is gay coincides with Our Woman getting intercepted by a woman, Red the Twit, who tells her she was sleeping with Our Woman’s husband but now she’s gone religious.

Then everything changes. Our Woman is shaken from complacency and begins a quest for experiences that match those of her husband and son. She finds a stranger to engage in an awkward one-night stand, considering her husband and Red the Twit and how this bumbly fumbly matches what they have done. She spends time at the library studying places she’s never been -- like Syria. She meets a young security guard and begins a slow seduction that will lead up to recreating the different romantic episodes she has seen Jimmy engaged in. Meanwhile, Our Woman’s husband has stopped funding Jimmy’s schooling and their son comes home to stay for awhile before jetting off to the United States to join the Army and eventually go to Afghanistan and eventually die.

This is a complicatedly woven story led by an unreliable narrator whose vision of herself doesn’t always sync to the ways others see her -- especially her husband and a gaggle of girlfriends -- or even the way a reader sees her as the perspective shifts from first to third person and back again. The third-person view of the revelation of her son’s homosexuality is chillier than the the oozing affection she maintains for him in first person. Red the Twit describes her husband in a way that is opposites-ville from the way Our Woman sees him. And the scenes from a hospital are a constant contradiction between what is jotted in her file and how she remembers the events unfolding.

Considering Our Woman spends so much time reeling about confused and sick with grief and mentally clouded, this book is darkly funny. In a scene with the card salesman, her first dalliance with infidelity, she goes back to his room and begins stripping and it all catches him off guard.

“He commented on the remaining bits of clothes on her, that’s a good quality skirt, rather than the body she’d unwrapped. He then remarked, somewhat absently, he’d been thinking of going on a day trip to Wales. Had she ever been to Wales?”

Schofield is one of those writer-writers and colorful sentences that flip from funny to heavy seem to come naturally to her. She’s really captured the layers of a woman who has conflicting emotions about the series of events she’s faced. This puzzle of a plot must have been a bugger to sort through and arrange. ...more

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Jul 28, 2013 Anne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The cover of this novel is scattered with praising comments from well-known and much-loved authors such as Emma Donoghue and Margaret Atwood. The paperback version is beautifully presented, with almost childlike illustrations that on closer inspection, are perfectly suited to the story within.

Malarky is not an easy read by any means, although it is a short novel at just over 200 pages. The story is set out in episodes, rather than chapters and although the setting is modern-day Ireland, Our ...more

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May 29, 2012 Katie Hilton rated it really liked it

Shelves: first-reads

***********This was a Good Reads giveaway****************
I immediately fell in love with the title of this book, so I read on to the plot summary. When I read the plot summary on the site, I was drawn to the comically dark and twisted plot line, so I entered the giveaway.

Honestly, I felt like I was peeking into the intimate lives of this family and watching all of their dirty laundry unfold. As I read on , I began to have wavering feelings about the main character. I don’t want to reveal any ...more

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Aug 10, 2016 Cathy Austin rated it it was amazing

Malarky is magnificent. Breezed through this small but powerfully written narrative. Aptly titled. Characters swept up with a fine brush stroke. Struck many chords with me. Clever, delicious word fest, Irish in tone and setting, fine ear for dialect, daily living, inner thoughts and reckless, wonderful letting loose behaviour of Our Woman. My copy was from my local library and I had to stop wanting to dog ear so many pages to remember and re-read. Oh. What a delight. Dark humour. Sorrow, a ...more

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Jun 17, 2014 Steve rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

Really an excellent novel. The protagonist and (often) narrator is one of the most compelling, complex characters I've read in a while. She's an older woman, a farmer's wife, in rural Ireland and the way Malarky dismantles and deploys tropes of "the farmer's wife" and "the pastoral Irish novel" are brilliant. Our Woman is the type of voice who most often either isn't heard, or is given such a cliché of a voice and presence in someone else's story that she might have been better off left unheard, ...more

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Aug 10, 2013 Ann rated it did not like it

I was very disappointed with this book, it seems to have received many good reviews which surprises me.
It was difficult to follow, very disjointed and events don't happen in any chronological order. The main character jumps from writing of herself in the first person 'I' then the next paragraph she's 'Our Woman'.
I found this book to be depressing, dismal and none of the humour I was expecting.

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Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Why do you think Halim is so interested in pregnancy and childbirth?	1	14	Oct 25, 2013 02:44AM
How do you feel the relationship between Our Woman and Jimmy is portrayed?	1	4	Oct 25, 2013 02:42AM
Consider parallels in the novel, such as fantasy and reality, life and death, and their relation to the various characters.	1	2	Oct 25, 2013 02:41AM
What do you think the significance is of people’s names in the novel?	1	6	Oct 25, 2013 02:41AM
Towards the end of the novel, Our Woman describes herself as a ‘patchwork’ woman. What do you think she means by this?	1	1	Oct 25, 2013 02:40AM
What do you think the significance is of Spain and Beirut and Our Woman’s fascination with them?	1	5	Oct 25, 2013 02:40AM
Do you think the non-sequential structure works well within the context of the novel?	1	2	Oct 25, 2013 02:39AM

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About Anakana Schofield

Anakana Schofield

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Anakana Schofield is an Irish-Canadian writer of fiction, essays, and literary criticism. Her second novel Martin John was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and more.. Her debut novel Malarky won the 2012 Amazon.ca First Novel and the Debut Litzer Prize for Fiction in the US and was nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Malarky was ...more