Montreal was very good to Malarky this week. More pan clanging!\u00a0 Thank you to the Montreal Gazette and Ian McGillis, who had plenty thoughtful warm remarking and framing on Malarky. Some snips below:<\/p>\n
“..she\u2019s one of the most vivid fictional creations to come along in years, and a new literary standard bearer for the most under-represented of demographics: the working class middle-aged woman.”<\/p>\n
“Toeing the delicate line between tragedy and comedy \u2013 the former inherent in the bare facts of Our Woman\u2019s life, the latter in her irrepressible voice \u2013 Schofield starts at a pitch of inspiration most novels are lucky to reach at any point and remarkably sustains that level all the way through. The spirit of Joyce\u2019s Molly Bloom hovers around the edges of Malarky, so if you\u2019ve always found the last pages of Ulysses to be the highlight of that difficult masterpiece, you might just find Molly\u2019s modern-day descendant in Our Woman. Others will be reminded of another Irish classic, lately fallen into unjust neglect: Edna O\u2019Brien\u2019s 1960 novel The Country Girls. But here\u2019s one Irish country girl who has grown up and seen and done things O\u2019Brien\u2019s could never have envisioned.”<\/p>\n