Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2021
Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2022.
Discover this bitingly honest,darkly funny debut novel about a toxic relationship and secret female desire,from an emerging star of Irish literature.
Love was the final consolation,would set ablaze the fields of my life in one go,leaving nothing behind. I thought of it as a force which would clean me and by its presence make me worthy of it. There was no religion in my life after early childhood,and a great faith in love was what I had cultivated instead. Oh,don't laugh at me for this,for being a woman who says this to you. I hear myself speak.
Even now,even after all that took place between us,I can still feel how moved I am by him. Ciaran was that downy,darkening blond of a baby just leaving its infancy. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. None of it mattered in the end; what he looked like,who he was,the things he would do to me. To make a beautiful man love and live with me had seemed - obviously,intuitively - the entire point of life. My need was greater than reality,stronger than the truth,more savage than either of us would eventually bear. How could it be true that a woman like me could need a man's love to feel like a person,to feel that I was worthy of life And what would happen when I finally wore him down and took it
Publisher: Vintage PublishingISBN: 9781529113013Number of pages: 288Weight: 202 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 17 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Oh my god! Such brilliant writing about female desire,co-dependant love,the ownership that's taken of female bodies and how it corrupts our relationship to them. I identified hugely. Incredibly honest and visceral.'- Marian Keyes
'A dark,intense account of an obsessive love affair. It's great on the elation of falling in love and then its flip side,the anxiety,fixation and self-doubt. A really fine debut.'-David Nicholls
'This is an incredible debut...Poignant,poetic,raw and utterly unique - I couldn't stop reading. Pre-order it now.'-Pandora Sykes
'Is Acts of Desperation the next Normal People An'exhilarating'debut from a young Irish author...interrogates what it means to be a woman addicted to love. - Harriet Johnston.'-Daily Mail
'Megan Nolan is a huge literary talent,and her first novel is a love story like no other.'-Karl Ove Knausgaard
'A darkly rich and heady exploration of hunger and unraveling,Acts of Desperation is unashamed and honest. It questions the truest way to inhabit a body and shows us the horror and the beauty in learning to be alone.'-Jessica Andrews
'One of the most anticipated books of the year... Lives up to the hype. - Dominique Sisley.'-AnOther Magazine,The Literary Fiction to Look Out for in 2021
'Honest,brutal and intense,Megan Nolan's Acts Of Desperation is described as "an anti-romance.'-Francesca Brown,Stylist,Best New Fiction for 2021
'Acts of Desperation charts the obsession of an unnamed narrator with a cold,beautiful man named Ciaran with forensic focus and biting honesty.'-The Observer
'Disarmingly distinctive...(Acts of Desperation) excavates our private hearts...Subverting traditional love stories.'-Madeleine Feeny,Evening Standard
'Nolan's ability to illustrate the rawest thoughts,neurosis and murky emotions is unrivalled. It's a read that will get inside your core.'-Rhys Thomas,Face
Kommentar