Awards

• Nominated for Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award 2019 (Ireland)

Overview

Abandoned by her parents when they resettle in Meath, Mary O Conaill faces the task of raising her younger siblings alone. Padraig is disappeared, Seán joins the Christian Brothers, Bridget escapes and her brother Seamus inherits the farm. Maeve is sent to serve a family of shopkeepers in the local town. Later, pregnant and unwed, she is placed in a Magdalene Laundry where her twins are forcibly removed. Spanning the 1930s to the 70s, this sweeping multi-generational family saga follows the psychic and physical displacement of a society in freefall after independence. Wit, poetic nuance, vitality and authenticity inhabit this remarkable novel. The Cruelty Men tells an unsentimental tale of survival in a country proclaimed as independent but subjugated by silence

Full Product Details

9781843517399

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Reviews

‘The Cruelty Men is a tidal wave that drags you like a piece of debris through Irish history from the ice age to gangland Dublin. A bible of f–cked up Irishness.’ -- Irvine Welsh ‘The Cruelty Men is a tidal wave that drags you like a piece of debris through Irish history from the ice age to gangland Dublin. A Bible of fucked up Irishness.’ – IRVINE WELSH ‘Emer Martin has written a beautiful alternative history of Ireland ... a book that traces the meaning of storytelling, mislaid culture and the boundless quest for belonging. The prose is captivating and seductive, it left me exhilarated and breathless, with new eyes on what it means to be Irish.’ – JUNE CALDWELL The Cruelty Men is a tidal wave that drags you like a piece of debris through Irish history from the ice age to gangland Dublin. A bible of f–cked up Irishness. -- Irvine Welsh Martin is a natural storyteller with a finely tuned ear for language and symbolism. -- Hilary A. White * The Independent * The long-time California resident has come full circle, training her acutely dissecting gaze on her homeland, with an epic family saga of 20th-century Ireland. -- Desmond Trayner * The Irish Times * The sinister title and monochrome cover suggest a horror story from the Stephen King playbook. It is indeed horror; albeit historical horror, well-trodden ground in Ireland, yet Emer Martin’s new work manages to present Irish history in a striking way. -- Katie Binns * The Sunday Times * Emer Martin’s new novel The Cruelty Men is an epic read – and it’s also an epic journey through Irish history. -- Aoife Barry * The Journal *

‘The Cruelty Men is a tidal wave that drags you like a piece of debris through Irish history from the ice age to gangland Dublin. A bible of f–cked up Irishness.’ -- Irvine Welsh The Cruelty Men is a tidal wave that drags you like a piece of debris through Irish history from the ice age to gangland Dublin. A bible of f–cked up Irishness. -- Irvine Welsh Martin is a natural storyteller with a finely tuned ear for language and symbolism. -- Hilary A. White * The Independent * The long-time California resident has come full circle, training her acutely dissecting gaze on her homeland, with an epic family saga of 20th-century Ireland. -- Desmond Trayner * The Irish Times * The sinister title and monochrome cover suggest a horror story from the Stephen King playbook. It is indeed horror; albeit historical horror, well-trodden ground in Ireland, yet Emer Martin’s new work manages to present Irish history in a striking way. -- Katie Binns * The Sunday Times * Emer Martin’s new novel The Cruelty Men is an epic read – and it’s also an epic journey through Irish history. -- Aoife Barry * The Journal * ‘The Cruelty Men is a tidal wave that drags you like a piece of debris through Irish history from the ice age to gangland Dublin. A Bible of fucked up Irishness.’ – IRVINE WELSH ‘Emer Martin has written a beautiful alternative history of Ireland ... a book that traces the meaning of storytelling, mislaid culture and the boundless quest for belonging. The prose is captivating and seductive, it left me exhilarated and breathless, with new eyes on what it means to be Irish.’ – JUNE CALDWELL

'The Cruelty Men is a tidal wave that drags you like a piece of debris through Irish history from the ice age to gangland Dublin. A bible of f-cked up Irishness.' -- Irvine Welsh The Cruelty Men is a tidal wave that drags you like a piece of debris through Irish history from the ice age to gangland Dublin. A bible of f-cked up Irishness. -- Irvine Welsh Martin is a natural storyteller with a finely tuned ear for language and symbolism. -- Hilary A. White * The Independent * The long-time California resident has come full circle, training her acutely dissecting gaze on her homeland, with an epic family saga of 20th-century Ireland. -- Desmond Trayner * The Irish Times * The sinister title and monochrome cover suggest a horror story from the Stephen King playbook. It is indeed horror; albeit historical horror, well-trodden ground in Ireland, yet Emer Martin's new work manages to present Irish history in a striking way. -- Katie Binns * The Sunday Times * Emer Martin's new novel The Cruelty Men is an epic read - and it's also an epic journey through Irish history. -- Aoife Barry * The Journal * 'The Cruelty Men is a tidal wave that drags you like a piece of debris through Irish history from the ice age to gangland Dublin. A Bible of fucked up Irishness.' - IRVINE WELSH 'Emer Martin has written a beautiful alternative history of Ireland ... a book that traces the meaning of storytelling, mislaid culture and the boundless quest for belonging. The prose is captivating and seductive, it left me exhilarated and breathless, with new eyes on what it means to be Irish.' - JUNE CALDWELL

Author Information

Emer Martin is a Dubliner who has lived in Paris, London, the Middle East and the USA. Her first novel, Breakfast in Babylon, won Listowel Book of the Year in 1996. More Bread or I’ll Appear, her second, was published internationally in 1999. Her third novel, Baby Zero, was published in the UK and Ireland in 2007, and in the USA in 2014. She has worked as a theatre producer and publisher, founding the publishing cooperative Rawmeash in 2014. She was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000. She now lives between California and Co. Meath in Ireland.

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