HeyJaredLucy Sweeney Byrne
- Indexed articles, last 90 days
- 6
- Latest publication
- Sep 8, 2026
- Outlet visibility, for Irish Times
- Top 5K sites
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 4, 2026
Latest articles
The Renovation by Kenan Orhan: Important and funny but it doesnât quite land (opens the original)
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In The Renovation we meet Dilara, who, with her Alzheimerâs-suffering father and neurotic husband, lives in a small flat in Italy after fleeing Erdoganâs increasingly constrictive regime in Turkey. The novel begins when what was supposed to be a new bathroom is instead transformed into a cell in a womenâs prison in Turkey. And so weâre given, with this tidy little legerdemain, the split-self experience of the exile. Dilara exists in two prisons, that of her life as an exile, and the actu
The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis: An eerie moodscape built through story (opens the original)
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Thereâs something extraordinary about Chloe Aridjisâs writing in The Shadow of the Object, a quality both intoxicating and unsettling. It almost reads like an overly precise and thus mildly unheimlich translation of anotherâs work. Between sittings, I kept having that experience of remembering the mood of a dream I must have had only to realise that, no, I was recalling the book. Yearning to get back to the book, more accurately, to submerge myself in its strange logic. The sentences and h
Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman: Too clever by half (opens the original)
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There are books we enjoy and books we admire, and despite potentially exposing myself as too much of a dunce to get it, Helen of Nowhere falls firmly into the latter category for me. Published by Fitzcarraldo, whom I admire (those intoxicating blue covers, signifying the discerning intellectual middle classes, are specifically designed to woo gobshites like me), and longlisted for the Booker, I very much wanted to like it, wanted to find it moving and meaningful and true. I just couldnât quite
A Little Bit Bad: One for the bath with a glass of wine, in the best possible way (opens the original)
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You hear faintly horrifying stories of people (men) who plan their art the way Nike plans a shoe campaign. Take Jonathan Franzen, who, early in his career, âmapped the worldâ for his novels; in other words, he made charts that included all the hot topics of the day, to ensure his work encompassed everything that might be considered relevant (a very funny move from him, therefore, to call his current trilogy A Key To All Mythologies. At least, I hope heâs being funny). And then there was Wi
Kitten by Stacey Yu: Strange, vibrant and genuinely idiosyncratic novel (opens the original)
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There is nothing more off-putting to any potential book reviewer than the insipid explanations some publishers are foisting upon their authors in the form of an anodyne, explicatory essay that accompanies the press release. These essays are a testament to the lengths authors are required to go to get their work seen in the current, brutal market. Imagine Kafka having to write one for Metamorphosis or (posthumously) The Castle? âDear reader, Gregor turning into a giant insect is a metaphor for
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For Irish Times, the outlet · Measured Aug 1, 2026
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