‘Ravelling’s diverse, captivating cast of characters, rendered in pin-sharp dialogue reminiscent of Roddy Doyle, leaves the reader with an immersive sense of multi-cultural Ireland.’
(Publisher Quote)
[ About Ravelling ]
SET IN DUBLIN’S LIBERTIES, Estelle Birdy’s explosively original debut Ravelling channels the energies and agonies of young men let loose in the city, their city, navigating the tumultuous trajectory of youth and young manhood, where they balance their hopes with the harsh realities of their present.
Hurtling between friendships, feuds, drug-deals, family and brushes with the law, this is modern Dublin as never before portrayed. Ravelling follows Deano, a weed-smoking hurling star, living with his aunt in an about-to-be-demolished flat; Hamza, a Pakistani Muslim atheist and precocious academic, who sells his ADHD drugs to the kids in a private school; Oisín, empathetic and iron-willed, who has begun to see his dead brother at the end of his bed; Congolese nature lover, Benit, who just wants to relax and hurl with the lads; Karl, a maybe-gay fashionista, dreaming of something better while immersing himself in his art.
Bound by friendship, place and the memories of those who’ve died too soon, these young men grapple with race, class, sex, parties, poverty, violence and Garda harassment, all while wondering what it means to be a man in twenty-first century Ireland.
[ My Review ]
Ravelling by Estelle Birdy published with Lilliput Press May 9th and is described as ‘fast-paced, funny and eye-popping, it descends from Trainspotting, White Teeth and Milkman in its portrayal of urban life in the twenty-first century.‘
Challenging, affecting & full of heart, Ravelling is a coming-of-age story set in The Liberties, an urban area in the inner-city of Dublin and now home to Estelle Birdy. Living and working in this neighbourhood inspired Estelle Birdy to write a compassionate tale about a bunch of disparate young lads trying to figure out their individual paths in life while struggling to survive in a society that keeps pushing them down. There is so much empathy in every page of this book, with characters that transcend the pages, making it very obvious to every reader how important getting this novel published was for Estelle Birdy. Calling on her own teenage children and their friends, she made sure that she got the ethnicity and cultural aspects as accurate as possible at any given time.
Deano, Hamza, Oisín, Benit and Karl are all Leaving Cert students with dreams for a better future yet also with the sense to realise that the odds are very much stacked against them. As they navigate their way in life, they face the dangers of the streets and the brutality of gang-related crimes. Ireland today is more diverse than it was many years ago and this has caused friction in some quarters but Estelle Birdy brilliantly depicts how five, on paper, distinctly different young men can be buddies. They don’t care about colour or creed, all they care about is friendship, trust and loyalty. Through the use of the local vernacular, these lads throw insults at each other that some may consider offensive but, as these lads are friends, they just don’t care.
I have to mention the dialect that is used throughout. Estelle Birdy brilliantly captures the very essence of the language of an inner-city Dublin teenager. As a reader you have to immerse yourself in this and literally grasp the writing style from the first chapter. Iron Annie by Luke Cassidy and Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry are two comparable reads where dialect is an important ingredient of the novel. Initially it can be tricky to understand but once you go with the flow, it’s a very immersive and authentic experience.
I mention the two books above from a dialect perspective but it is the heart-breaking novels Boys Don’t Cry by Fíona Scarlett and the epic German novel, While We Were Dreaming by Clemens Meyer, that really came to the fore for me when reading Ravelling. Boys Don’t Cry is an obvious comparison as it’s set in a similar Dublin working class environment but, from the perspective of young male friendship, While We Were Dreaming by Clemens Meyer is a very similar story. Clemens Meyer’s book is a very raw novel about a bunch of young lads growing up in Leipzig at the time of reunification in Germany in 1989. The dialogue, life circumstances and obstacles faced by these lads is comparable to Estelle Birdy’s depiction of these twenty-first century friends living in The Liberties in Dublin.
Ravelling is an outstanding first novel receiving, justifiably, incredible reviews from Donal Ryan, Karl Geary, John Boyne and Sebastian Barry. With hilarious anecdotes and first-class banter, Ravelling captures the spirit of youthful resilience and rebellion. At times it’s unflinching, but it has a massive heart and is a spectacular and uncompromising debut. And in other exciting news Ravelling has been optioned by Sleeper Films for a major TV series, so bravo Estelle Birdy.
* I would to thank The Lilliput Press for a copy of Ravelling in exchange for my honest review.
[ Bio ]
Estelle Birdy was born in London and spent most of her childhood in Dundalk, Co Louth. She fell in love with Dublin’s Liberties when she moved there at the age of nineteen. She is a graduate of UCD’s Master’s in Creative Writing and has won or been shortlisted for the Dalkey Creates, Penfro Book Festival, Verve Poetry Festival and IWC Novel Fair competitions. The cornerstone of Birdy’s writing is the epic nature of the stories of the ordinary and often marginalised people around her. Short story and poetry publication credits include the Unbridled poetry anthology, Sonder Midwest, The Squawkback, Heartland Anthology and The Verve Poetry Festival Anthology. She is a preliminary judge for the RTÉ Francis MacManus Short Story Competition and reviews regularly for the Irish Times, Sunday Independent and the Irish Independent. Her debut novel, Ravelling, published with The Lilliput Press in May 2024.
X ~ @BirdyBooky
