It is odd to read a novel one simultaneously admires and loathes. The admiration is for the book’s intelligence, lack of sentimentality and often extraordinary phrase-making: the loathing is for the relentless navel-gazing, intensity and bleakness of the narrator, Veronica Hegarty, as she drags us along on her journey around her parents, grandparents and brother Liam, with brief stops to survey – usually with distaste – her husband Tom, their two children and her ten other siblings.

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