The Lesser Bohemians

Shortlisted for The Goldsmith Prize 2016 Shortlisted for the 2016 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards Eason Novel of the Year The captivating, daring new novel from Eimear McBride, whose astonishing debut novel, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, was an international literary phenomenon and earned the author multiple awards and recognition. Upon arrival in London, an eighteen-year-old Irish girl begins anew as a drama student, with all the hopes of any young actress searching for the fame she's always dreamed of. She struggles to fit in -- she's young and unexotic; a naive new girl -- but soon she forges friendships and finds a place for herself in the big city. Then she meets an attractive older man. He's an established actor twenty years her senior, and the inevitable, clamorous relationship that ensues is one that will change her forever. A redemptive, captivating story of passion and innocence set across the bedsits of mid-nineties London, McBride holds new love under her fierce gaze, giving us all a chance to remember what it's like to fall hard for another.

A story of first love and redemption, from the author of the multi-award-winning A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing. An eighteen-year-old girl, recently arrived in London from Ireland, is enrolled in drama school. Innocent, nervous, the youngest in her class, she is eager to make an impression, to do well. She meets a man—older, a well-regarded actor in his own right—and falls for him. But he’s haunted by more than a few demons—and their tumultuous relationship might be the undoing of them both. Set across the bedsits and squats of mid-nineties north London, The Lesser Bohemians is a story of love and innocence, joy and discovery, the grip of the past and the struggle to be new again. Eimear McBride was born in Liverpool but moved to Ireland when she was three. She grew up in Tubbercurry, Co. Sligo and Castlebar, Co. Mayo, before moving to London aged seventeen to study at The Drama Centre. Her first novel, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, won many literary awards including the 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and the 2014 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Her most recent book is The Lesser Bohemians. Eimear lives in Norwich with her family. ‘It’s a mark of McBride’s magic—her genius if you like—that she trusts that readers are perfectly able to knit a coherent sensibility out the non–linearity of thought.’ Adelaide Review ‘A dazzling, affecting and stimulating read. We can imagine it as Samuel Beckett fused with Henry Miller. Far better, though, to appreciate it for what it really is: the work of one of the most exciting voices in fiction today.’ Australian ‘McBride writes in a stream of consciousness style that’s as accessible as it is startling. It can make the world new at the same time as evoking its timeless fundamentals.’ Independent ‘Without ever passing judgment, The Lesser Bohemians situates itself at that point of moral, sexual and grammatical uncertainty where, in Eily’s words again, "pure is indivisible from its reverse". For me it is the ability to delve so deeply into all of this, more or less regardless, that makes for the unique talent—the wilful, sensuous generosity—of Eimear McBride.’ Jacqueline Rose, London Review of Books ‘The Lesser Bohemians confirms McBride’s status as one of our major novelists. She writes with beauty, wisdom and humour and she is uniquely sensitive to what is being communicated with every look or jerk of the body.’ Guardian ‘[A] magnificent, sex-soused, innocence-to-experience rollercoaster...Having put both her characters’ and readers’ hearts through the wringer, the sweetness that McBride ultimately grants feels earned.’ Daily Mail ‘McBride is one of the most exciting literary talents to emerge in the last few years.’ Financial Times ‘McBride is always brilliant on her central theme—the paradox that it is shame that makes us behave shamefully.’ Irish Times ‘If you rush McBride’s sentences, you’ll trip...The rewards for adopting a slower pace are linguistic joys and surprises on every page...this extraordinary novel deserves all the success of McBride’s first.’ New Statesman ‘[The Lesser Bohemians] immerses the reader in a headlong, broken-up narrative on love, sex, betrayal and intimacy.’ Best Books of 2016, New Zealand Listener ‘An urgent, semi-Dostoevskian story of brokenness, sexual awakening, perversion, and (partial) redemption, written in a lively, Joycean style.’ Shannon Burns, Australian Book Review, 2016 Books of the Year ‘The standout novel of the year...It's been said that McBride comes trailing James Joyce behind her, but with this second novel she's leaving him in her wake. Triumphant and disturbing.’ Drussilla Modjeska, The Books We Loved 2016, Sydney Morning Herald ‘I am so glad that urgency pushed them [The Lesser Bohemians and A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing] up the to-read list. Both deal with a girl trying to construct herself and the world around her, and in both it’s a fairly messy process. Start these on a hot night when you have nowhere to be in the morning and proceed with getting drunk on the language.’ 2016 Staff Picks, Kill Your Darlings ‘Compared with the first, The Lesser Bohemians is more accessible, perhaps, certainly more unsettling, but undoubtedly further confirmation of a major talent.’ Ashleigh Wilson, Best Books of 2016, Australian ‘Urgent, semi-Dostoesvskian story of brokenness, sexual awakening, perversion, and (partial) redemption, written in a lively, Joycean style. McBride’s uncompromising first novel, A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing set the bar formidably high, but The Lesser Bohemians doesn’t disappoint.’ Shannon Burns, Best Books of 2016, Australian Book Review ‘Step inside the head of Eily, an 18-year-old who moves to London to start drama school, begins “worldening” (the process of becoming more worldy)—and starts an affair with Stephen, a charismatic womanizer of 38. The book’s laser focus on their relationship, with its many (but never gratuitous) sex scenes, captures the relationship’s intensity and uncertainty, and the way love can change you...If you enjoy novels that push the boundaries and get your swept up, this one’s for you.’ North and South

** WINNER OF THE JAMES TAIT BLACK MEMORIAL PRIZE ** ** SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE ** The second novel from Eimear McBride, author of the Baileys Prize winning novel, A Girl is a Half-formed Thing. The vibrant energy of 1990s London. A year of passion and discovery. The anxiety and intensity of new love. An eighteen-year-old Irish girl arrives in London to study drama and falls violently in love with an older actor. While she is naive and thrilled by life in the big city, he is haunted by demons. The clamorous relationship that ensues risks undoing them both. At once epic and exquisitely intimate, The Lesser Bohemians is a celebration of the dark and the light in love.

Taking the literary world by storm, Eimear McBride’s internationally praised debut is one of the most acclaimed novels in recent years; it is “subversive, passionate, and darkly alchemical. Read it and be changed” (Eleanor Catton). Eimear McBride’s debut tells, with astonishing insight and in riveting detail, the story of a young woman’s relationship with her brother, the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour, and her harrowing sexual awakening. Not so much a stream-of-consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing plunges inside its narrator’s head, exposing her world firsthand. This isn’t always comfortable—but it is always a revelation. Touching on everything from family violence to religion to addiction, and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma, McBride writes with singular intensity, acute sensitivity, and mordant wit. A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing is moving, funny, and alarming. It is a book you will never forget.

From Eimear McBride, author of the award-winning A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, comes the beguiling travelogue of a woman in exile: from her past, her ghosts, and herself. A nameless woman enters a hotel room. She’s been here once before. In the years since, the room hasn’t changed, but she has. Forever caught between check-in and check-out, she will go on to occupy other hotel rooms. From Avignon to Oslo, Auckland to Austin, each is as anonymous as the last but bound by rules of her choosing. There, amid the detritus of her travels, the matchbooks, cigarettes, keys and room-service wine, she negotiates with her memories, with the men she sometimes meets, with the clichés invented to aggravate middle-aged women, with those she has lost or left behind--and with what it might mean to return home. Urgent and immersive, filled with black humour and desire, McBride’s Strange Hotel is a novel of enduring emotional force.

The blistering non-fiction debut from the author of the critically acclaimed A Girl is a Half-formed Thing *As heard on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour* 'A fearless, interrogative work ... A fierce and fascinating manifesto in McBride's persuasive prose' Sinéad Gleeson Here, Eimear McBride unpicks the contradictory forces of disgust and objectification that control and shame women. From playground taunts of 'only sluts do it' but 'virgins are frigid', to ladette culture, and the arrival of 'ironic' porn, via Debbie Harry, the Kardashians and the Catholic church - she looks at how this prejudicial messaging has played out in the past, and still surrounds us today. In this subversive essay, McBride asks - are women still damned if we do, damned if we don't? How can we give our daughters (and sons) the unbounded futures we want for them? And, in this moment of global crisis, might our gift for juggling contradiction help us to find a way forward? 'A satisfying feminist polemic' Susie Orbach 'Remarkable' Scotsman 'Eimear McBride is that old fashioned thing, a genius' Guardian

A dazzling novel of one of America’s most celebrated photographers, Dorothea Lange, exploring the wild years in San Francisco that awakened her career-defining grit, compassion, and daring. “Jasmin Darznik expertly delivers an intriguing glimpse into the woman behind those unforgettable photographs of the Great Depression, and their impact on humanity.”—Susan Meissner, bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things In this novel of the glittering and gritty Jazz Age, a young aspiring photographer named Dorothea Lange arrives in San Francisco in 1918. As a newcomer—and naïve one at that—Dorothea is grateful for the fast friendship of Caroline Lee, a vivacious, straight-talking Chinese American with a complicated past, who introduces Dorothea to Monkey Block, an artists’ colony and the bohemian heart of the city. Dazzled by Caroline and her friends, Dorothea is catapulted into a heady new world of freedom, art, and politics. She also finds herself falling in love with the brilliant but troubled painter Maynard Dixon. As Dorothea sheds her innocence, her purpose is awakened and she grows into the artist whose iconic Depression-era “Migrant Mother” photograph broke the hearts and opened the eyes of a nation. A vivid and absorbing portrait of the past, The Bohemians captures a cast of unforgettable characters, including Frida Kahlo, Ansel Adams, and D. H. Lawrence. But moreover, it shows how the gift of friendship and the possibility of self-invention persist against the ferocious pull of history.

Written during her time as the inaugural fellow in the Beckett archive last year, Eimear McBride's three short, characteristically brilliant plays - collected in one work, Mouthpieces.Each play depicts a fragment of female experience, all of them told in in Eimear's vivid, original and sharp-witted style. In 'The Adminicle Exists', we hear the inner voice of a woman who saves her troubled, dangerous partner; in 'An Act of Violence', a woman is quizzed about her reaction to a man's death; in 'The Eye Machine', the character 'Eye' tells of her imprisonment, flickering through a slideshow of female stereotypes.