This is the Country

A genuine literary talent, with a poet's gift for apposite, wry observation, dialogue and character . . . a masterful, ironic book of loss and bitter optimism, money and poverty, the impossible divide between city and country - Guardian

[An] elegiac tale of loss and dispossession . . . Wall is too astringent a storyteller to fob his readers off with a feel-good ending. But he is also sufficiently poetic in his use of language to infuse the struggles of his hero with deep human feeling. - Sunday Telegraph

A raw and uncompromising but tender portrait of Ireland in the here and now . . . In THIS IS THE COUNTRY he has redefined a female icon, one you might have thought you knew - Mother Ireland. She is not pretty but she is utterly authentic. - Irish Independent

'A compelling picture of a land of lost souls.' - Times Literary Supplement

A terrific novel . . . THIS IS THE COUNTRY stands out because it stares directly at the dark side of contemporary Ireland without looking away, or even blinking. In the parlance of the Irish, it's a mint piece of work. It deserves a place on the shelf alongside William Trevor and Edna O'Brien. - David Means