Finbar's Hotel - Dermot Bolger

'The hotel has stood in Dublin's quays since the '20s, but its glory days have long since passed it by. It's decrepit now - the haunt of weekend-breakers and tourists who don't know any better. Most of the guests and staff we meet are escaping from something . . . The joy for the reader come from the ingenuity with which each successive writer picks up the baton, teasing unforeseen consequences from events in earlier chapters. The result is always funny and often profound' John O'Connell, Time Out 'Whoever is behind the middle-aged man facing his midlife crisis, a cat-napper trying to order an acceptable meal for his yowling victim or two sisters drunkenly disinterring their past, they all share a common sense of humour. That liking for witty one-liners, or for a contrariness which encourages a woman to tell a man picked up in the bar that she is a nun, is extremely funny' Aisling Foster, The Times 'Seven top-notch contributions and a genuine feeling of collective impulse . . . the result is not merely a proper novel, seamlessly executed and with discernible themes and patterns, but a very good novel indeed . . . The reader leaves Finbar's decaying premises enthusing over the state of modern Irish writing' D. J. Taylor, Spectator 'This is a very good work indeed . . . You should check out - or into - Finbar's Hotel today' John Dunne, Books Ireland