The Rachel Incident (A Novel)

BOOK SUMMARY

A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three.

Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it's love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Caroline O'Donoghue is the New York Times best-selling author of All Our Hidden Gifts, her YA debut fantasy, which has been published in more than twenty territories around the world. She has written for The Times and The Guardian, and is the host of an award-winning podcast, Sentimental Garbage. She was born in Ireland and lives in London. The Rachel Incident is her first adult novel to be published in the U.S.

PRAISE

"Exuberant, bitingly satirical….Recalls the fiction of both Sally Rooney and Anne Tyler as the author interrogates the dynamics of power, from academia to publishing houses to bedrooms….O'Donoghue steers us toward reckonings large and small, her hand steady on the tiller….A gratifying, accomplished novel." — Hamilton Cain, The New York Times

"O'Donoghue [has] got my full attention....The Rachel Incident offers a tender reflection on those 20-something friendships that leave a permanent imprint....One of the many lovable things about this novel is O'Donoghue's kindhearted perspective on the awkwardness of the college years....Profoundly satisfying....O'Donoghue has found a way to tell this story in scenes both heartbreaking and funny. She illuminates these Irish lives with a light all her own." — Ron Charles, The Washington Post

"Who knew the financial crisis could be so … fun? Don't get me wrong, The Rachel Incident gets into some heavy themes – class, sexual identity, abortion, to name a few – but this book navigates a young Irishwoman's chaotic early 20s, during a specific economic moment, with a cozy warmth that had me laughing out loud throughout. This is one of those catch-yourself-smiling-without-realizing-it books – and one I think I'll go back to, the next time I just want to feel like it's all going to be OK." — Miles Parks, NPR

PRODUCT INFORMATION

Trade Paperback
304 Pages 
Fiction
8 in H | 5.2 in W | 0.6 in T | 0.5 lb