Caitriona Lally

This, the fifth and final volume in the Trinity Tales series, completes a cycle that began with tales from the 1960s. It invites readers to step into the world of Trinity College as it was in the first decade of this century through the reflections of students who attended the university during those years. Within its pages lie the stories of twenty-eight graduates from a mix of diverse backgrounds whose experiences may dispel the myths of what it means to be a ‘Trinity student’. The collection reveals the rapidly changing world of the early 2000s. This was a time of the internet revolution, when social media first affected student life, when mobile phones and laptops became ubiquitous, when handwritten work was passing into history, when The Buttery closed its doors – and all this coming against the backdrop of an overheating then imploding Irish economy. This kaleidoscope of recollections captures a student body in transformation and features stories of personal discovery and achievement against the odds. For some it proved a life-changing era when sexual, racial or class barriers were confronted. This volume concludes a remarkable half-century journey, portraying the lives of others, and of ourselves.

'Since I’ve had my first book published, I’ve earned more from cleaning than from writing. The home economics don’t add up.' HOME ECONOMICS is Caitríona Lally’s humorous, thought-provoking memoir of her time working in the housekeeping department at Trinity College Dublin while she awaits the publication of her first two novels in 2015 and 2021. Having cleaned part-time as a student, this return marks the beginning of a negotiation between the practical and creative demands of a writer’s life – an equation that is further complicated when she becomes pregnant. At Trinity, Lally and her colleagues shout to one another through empty, ancient libraries, step around sleeping students and laugh at the cleaner-shaped blind spots in the thinking of feminist conference attendees. Lally finds humour in the gap between how the world views this famous university and how she experiences it during her workday while offering a powerful reflection on the work she chooses to do, and why; how we might perceive ourselves, and others; and whether our own personal home economics actually add up. In her third book and first memoir, Lally writes in that space between the way the world sees the life of a writer and the reality of her own juggle with all the different, complex parts of her: writer, mother and partner, cleaner and runner, employee and colleague . . . success and failure.

The eagerly anticipated second novel by Rooney Prize winner Caitriona Lally.

WINNER OF THE ROONEY PRIZE 2018 A modern Irish literary gem for anyone who has felt like the odd one out. ‘Inventive, funny and, ultimately, moving’ GUARDIAN ‘Wildly funny’ THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW ‘Beguiling’ THE IRISH TIMES ‘Delightfully quirky’ THE IRISH INDEPENDENT Vivian is an oddball. An unemployed orphan living in the house of her recently deceased great aunt in North Dublin, Vivian boldly goes through life doing things in her own peculiar way, whether that be eating blue food, cultivating ‘her smell’, wishing people happy Christmas in April, or putting an ad up for a friend called Penelope to check why it doesn’t rhyme with antelope. But behind her heroic charm and undeniable logic, something isn’t right. With each attempt to connect with a stranger or her estranged sister doomed to misunderstanding, someone should ask: is Vivian OK? A poignant and delightful story of belonging that plays with the myth of the Changeling and takes us by the hand through Dublin. A poetic call for us all to accept each other and find the Vivian within.

--Irish Book of the Year Finalist --An Amazon Best Books of the Year So Far pick "Wildly funny." --THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW "Inventive, funny and, ultimately, moving." --Claire Kilroy, THE GUARDIAN Vivian doesn't feel like she fits in--and never has. As a child, she was so whimsical that her parents told her she was "left by fairies." Now, living alone in Dublin, she finds herself without a friend in the world. So, she decides it's time to change her life: She begins by advertising for a friend. Not just any friend. She wants one named Penelope. Meanwhile, Vivian roams the city, mapping out a new neighborhood every day, seeking her escape route to a better world, the other world her parents told her she came from. And then one day someone named Penelope answers her ad for a friend. And from that moment on, Vivian's life begins to change. Debut author Caitriona Lally offers readers an exhilaratingly fresh take on the Irish love for lyricism, humor, and inventive wordplay in a book that is, in itself, deeply charming, and deeply moving.