Old Romantics

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By (author): Maggie Armstrong

Shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien Award • Shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year

Like Dubliners, if Dubliners were “Cat Person” as a feminist mock-epic about a writer’s coming of age—and every Dubliner was named Margaret.

A woman pursues a man who cut ahead of her in a line. Two nice people report that a child is being left unsupervised at a local beach. Romances, old and new, shift and sour. Following Maggie Armstrong’s intrepid hero, Margaret, through first love, first bad date, first job, first extremely bad date, and on into midlife and its attendant disillusionment—and surprising revelations—Old Romantics is an acutely observed and hideously entertaining collection of linked short stories from an astonishing new talent. Slippery, flawed, and acute, Armstrong’s narrator navigates a world of awkward expectation and latent hostility with piercing insight into the trials and tribulations of attempting to be human while female.

AUTHOR

Maggie Armstrong

Reviews

Praise forOld Romantics

The stories inOld Romanticsare tender heartsick crisp and haunting They will stay with you

Colin Barrett Booker Prizenominated author ofWild Houses

As for the prose you could bathe in it The details the clever turns of phrase A ticking clock is strict censorious like a clacking tongue A heart bangs like a broken toy

Niamh DonnellyIrish Times

The collection builds to four final stories with power insight and compassion for human frailty

Martina DevlinIrish Independent

An audacious debut

Irish Times

Readers ofOld Romanticswill be swept up in the verve of Armstrongs storytelling but the deeper purpose of the humour as with all good comedic writing is that of connection of recognition this crazy thing called life tell me you feel it too The more we laugh the closer we are to tearsOld Romanticsis a collection big on feeling on living romanticism with a capital R

Sarah GilmartinThe Stinging Fly

Old Romanticsis a dazzling snapshot of Dublin in the early 21st century full of wry social observation This book deserves a broad readership Its one for your friend or your sister or your favourite daughterinlaw it will appeal to anyone who likes clever modern writing about womanhood

Aingeala FlanneryIrish Independent

Old Romanticsis somehow both elegant and fiery Maggie Armstrongs Dublin is full of surprises An excellent debut

Nicole Flattery

Exquisite and inventive prose conjures simmering menace along with sardonic comedy and razorsharp selfawareness in this mesmerising collection

Sophie White

Funny and awkward and honest and perceptive and shrewd a very exciting new voice in Irish fiction

Louise ONeill