Book Review: Aingeala Flannery - The Amusements

In her debut novel, Aingeala Flannery illustrates the potential of an unanswerable question: what happens if we do, and what happens if we don’t?

For the characters who live in the seaside town of Tramore, County Waterford, joy is defined by caravan parks, chippers and the so-called carnival amusements. Throughout three decades, Flannery follows teenagers Helen Grant and Stella Swaine and the lives entangled with their own. Each character owns a unique voice as the writing shifts seamlessly from sentimental observance to crude self-involvement, all the while sustaining an incessantly stark, Irish humour.

Flannery’s writing is as appallingly human as the flawed people she creates. Through the people it shapes and the ones it sends packing, Tramore becomes the best kind of character – one we can’t help but simultaneously love and despise. The Amusements is a story of choices, from the joy we reject chasing to the people and places we choose to leave behind.

The Amusements by Aingeala Flannery was published on June 23 via Sandycove (Penguin Ireland), available in stores and online now.