Ordinary Human Failings: The compulsive new novel from the author of Acts of Desperation

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London in the nineties- a tabloid journalist begins to probe long-held secrets of an Irish family implicated in a shocking crime **THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES AND GUARDIAN BOOK OF 2023** A dead child on a London estate and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive Irish family- the Greens. . . 'As much of a compulsive read as the first' THE TIMES 'One masterful novel... Nolan has excelled herself' TELEGRAPH It's 1990 in London and Tom Hargreaves has it all- a burgeoning career as a reporter, fierce ambition and a brisk disregard for the 'peasants' - ordinary people, his readers, easy tabloid fodder. His star looks set to rise when he stumbles across a scoop- a dead child on a London estate, grieving parents loved across the neighbourhood, and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive family of Irish immigrants and 'bad apples'- the Greens. At their heart sits Carmel- beautiful, other-worldly, broken, and once destined for a future beyond her circumstances until life - and love - got in her way. Crushed by failure and surrounded by disappointment, there's nowhere for her to go and no chance of escape. Now, with the police closing in on a suspect and the tabloids hunting their monster, she must confront the secrets and silences that have trapped her family for so many generations. 'Heartbreaking, society-examining stuff' VOGUE

Reviews

Megan Nolan's debut novel saw her grouped with other Irish millennial women such as Sally Rooney and Naoise Dolan. But with her ambitious and insightful second novel, Ordinary Human Failings, Nolan makes it clear she is not a manifestation of a type, but rather a writer to be read on her own terms * Financial Times *
One masterful novel... Nolan has excelled herself: Ordinary Human Failings is a raw, pulsing thing... A writer who's still at the start of what promises to be a splendid career. Ordinary Human Failings is a bold and beautiful second novel... daring in all the right ways, but compassionate when it needs to be * Daily Telegraph *
There is something wonderfully ordinary about this book... Nolan has set out to make a plain three-legged stool rather than an ornate grandfather clock. The corridors of contemporary literature are stuffed with grandfather clocks with faulty mechanisms. How much more valuable is this modest, well-made thing * Sunday Times *
Nolans novel is dark in subject, yet retains a tender faith in a persons, or a familys, capacity for change * New Statesman, *Books of the Year* *
Ambitious and original I loved its humanity and generosity I cant wait to read whatever comes next -- DAVID NICHOLLS, author of One Day and You Are Here

Author Bio

Megan Nolan was born in 1990 in Waterford, Ireland and is currently based in London. Her essays and reviews have been published by the New York Times, White Review, Guardian and Frieze amongst others. Her debut novel, Acts of Desperation, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2021 and was the recipient of a Betty Trask Award, shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.