- Opinion
- 17 Jun 21
Watch Lisa McInerney reading from her acclaimed novel, The Rules Of Revelation, below.
Last month, Lisa McInerney returned with The Rules Of Revelation, the highly anticipated third book in a trilogy that kicked off with the Women's Prize for Fiction-winning The Glorious Heresies. To celebrate the release, we're delighted to present the lauded Irish writer as our next guest on Hot Press's 'My Reading Of It' series – with her reading from The Rules Of Revelation premiering on the Hot Press YouTube channel this evening, June 17, at 7.30pm.
Although she was raised in Gort, in south Co. Galway, Lisa's love affair with Cork, the setting of her acclaimed trilogy, started early – spending summer months during her childhood visiting relatives in the Rebel County. She went on to relocate to the city as a young adult, to study English and Geography at University College Cork.
Arse End of Ireland, a blog Lisa started writing in 2006, drew the attention of another honorary Corkonian, Kevin Barry – who also recently featured on our 'My Reading Of It' series. He became an early champion of her work, commissioning her to contribute a short story to Faber's 2013 anthology, Town & Country: New Irish Short Stories. In 2015, at the age of 33, she published her first novel, The Glorious Heresies – which helped to establish her as one of the country's most renowned writers.
"There is much to admire – and to chew on – in The Rules of Revelation," Niall Stokes wrote in his review of McInerney's latest book. "A father's love for his son; old grudges against the girl next door; a far less smart than she thinks PC provocateur who wants to stir things up just because she can; mates trying to find a collective voice despite the too frequent misdirection of youth; and behind it all, the wheels of capitalism, in all its different guises, whirring.
"It ends in redemption, with Ryan and his music on the rise, and the increasingly iconic figure of a newly socially conscious Maureen Phelan being gloriously infected with the increasingly anarchic mood of the times. The Rules of Revelation ends on an uplifting, optimistic note. It is one to which the trilogy, and its superbly drawn characters are surely entitled.
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"Take a deep breath and hear this. Lisa McInerney's Cork trilogy is a major Irish literary achievement. And The Rules of Revelation is a riveting and essential read."
Watch Lisa McInerney reading from The Rules Of Revelation as part of our 'My Reading Of It' series – premiering at 7.30pm – below:
Revisit our recent interview with Lisa McInerney here.