Thirsty Ghosts

by Emer Martin

Emer Martin's is a radical, vital voice in Irish writing, as she challenges the history of silence, institutional lies, evasion and the mistreatment of women across mid-to-late twentieth-century Ireland.
Two families inhabit this immersive polyvocal work, an intergenerational saga announced with The Cruelty Men (2018) and continued here as punk rockers and Magdalene laundries spiral into a post-colonial Ireland still haunted by its tribal undertow. Scenes surface from Ireland's mythological past, Tudor plantations, workhouses and industrial schools, the Troubles laid bare, the transformative pre-digital decades playing out in this propulsive narrative. Thirsty Ghosts is epic in scope while intimate in focus.
The Lyons, professionals in a newly independent state, are attacked by paramilitaries in their family home in Tyrone. The eccentric O Conaills of Kerry, traumatized by displacement, find themselves in leafy Dublin 4. We encounter a servant who meets Henry VIII, a Lithuanian Jewish family who become part of the fabric of Dublin, and a wild young girl who escapes the laundry only to stumble into a psycho pimp.
Related with dark humour, verve and high literary style, Thirsty Ghosts is a revelatory exploration of Ireland combining themes of power, class, fertility, violence and deep love, forces as universal as the old stories that permeate and illuminate each character's life.

Genres: Irish Literature, Historical, Fiction

380 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

Emer Martin is a Dubliner who has lived in Paris, London, the Middle East, and various places in the U.S. Her first novel Breakfast in Babylon won Book of the Year 1996 in her native Ireland at the prestigious Listowel Writers’ Week. Houghton Mifflin released Breakfast in Babylon in the U.S. in 1997. More Bread Or I’ll Appear, her second novel was published internationally in 1999. Emer studied painting in New York and has had two sell-out solo shows of her paintings at the Origin Gallery in Harcourt St, Dublin. Her third novel Baby Zero, was published in the UK and Ireland March 07, and released in the U.S. 2014. She released her first children's book Why is the Moon Following Me? in 2013. Pooka is her latest book for Children released in 2016 She completed her third short film Unaccompanied. She produced Irvine Welsh’s directorial debut NUTS in 2007. Emer was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000. She now lives between the two clashing worlds of the depths of Silicon Valley, CA and the jungles of Co. Meath, Ireland. Her latest novel is The Cruelty Men

Emer is an experienced public speaker and enjoys talking to book clubs, schools, libraries etc. To book her for an event please contact her at martin_emer@hotmail.com

Reviews

[Stephanie Fujii · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve never read a book like this. Quite sweeping and complex, with one line zingers that made me laugh. The Hag chapters were my favorite.

[Samantha Bevoni · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Quando vi entrai, sentii che la foresta mi riconosceva. E sapevo che quando la foresta fosse scomparsa, nessuno più mi avrebbe riconosciuta. I giovani lupi mi seguivano da presso con quel modo diretto e sciolto che hanno di procedere. Le teste basse, rasoterra, seguivano l'odore di un mondo selvaggio e perduto che una volta aveva spazio per quelli come noi".

360 pagine di voci che si intrecciano in poesia, canti, storie e realtà.

[Mary O'donnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emer Martin's new novel is a tour de force of superb storytelling, vivid characterisation and utterly brilliant insight . In gripping, often poetic prose, she digs through the mess that Ireland was for its most vulnerable—the poor, those controlled by an often cruel Catholic Church in collusion with the Irish State right up to the 1980s and beyond. But this is no misery mockup. This is the real deal account of several families whose allegiances to one another are fractured, not alone by their native land but by forces of colonisation that go right back in history. Her challenge as novelist was to draw the threads of storytelling together that both expose the legacy of invasion by the Normans, then the British, that eventually resulted in a partitioned island. We witness the murder of the Miami Showband and other sectarian horror, including the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974. Is this a political novel? Yes, but also no. Its much greater than the parts of political interplay, because through writing that varies from moments of conversational comedy in the vernacular as when certain family members search for or deny the past, to personal pain for many of her female characters, to stretches of beautiful, poetic invention, Martin invites the reader by the hand to come gaze at Ireland through diverse sets of eyes that remind us how this is no simple place, no green Isle, but a surging place of stories, of attachment, broken by State collusion, but also a place of enduring, scalded love. Towards the close of the book, we once again meet the Hag of Beara, a visionary presence who also features in the first novel (The Cruelty Men) of what is to be a trilogy. The Hag in Dublin, in her arms the scraps of lost babies and children sacrificed by their own country in various cruel ways, makes for both surreal comedy and moments that made my eyes grow moist, especially when she tries to close off the disasters of the past. Make this your autumn read.

[Caterina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scritto molto bene, racconta l'Irlanda come terra di conquista inglese dai tempi delle prime invasioni, saltando avanti e indietro tra il medioevo e gli anni settanta. La narrazione è corale, dopo un po' ci si rende conto che i personaggi appartengono per lo più a due famiglie.
Il racconto non attraversa tutte le epoche, è sostanzialmente concentrato sugli anni '70 con qualche flashback. Questi anni non sono raccontati da un punto di vista politico, c'è qualche accenno a fatti storici qui e là ma sostanzialmente si concentra sui personaggi che sono sbandati, nostalgici, dediti alla truffa e alla piccola criminalità. Tutto avvolto in quest'atmosfera di sconfitta e di possibilità rubate.
Sinceramente, avrei preferito una prospettiva politica più forte invece che seguire solo sti sbandati, perché alla fine lascia il tempo che trova. La sensazione è che le cose importanti e le persone valide stiano altrove e che noi siamo obbligatə a seguire le storie di questi due gruppi familiari per una decisione arbitraria di chi scrive.

Mi è piaciuto abbastanza per lo stile ma non lo rileggerei e non mi ha lasciato la sensazione di aver imparato qualcosa di più sull'Irlanda o di aver letto qualcosa che mi ha cambiato la prospettiva. Un po' sono delusa.

[Brian Kavanagh]

Emer Martin's new novel 'Thirsty Ghosts' expreses empathy. So much understanding of history. I forgot one part of the family, my dad's mother was from Glenn Aird (famous for a singer called Bridie Gallagher), near Cresslough in Donegal. I forgtoDonegal is Ulster.. About 2 years after returning from London, when I was I think, nine, myself, sister and parents went to stay in the Friel family home where Johnny, a bachelor who worked on building sites and spent summers back there, was. No electricity. A woman looking like a witch came to read tea leaves. It was all magical. We went to visit a very old relative, and I knew driving there she was dead. And she was in a coffin when we got there. I won't go into visiting Coolea a year before, where a mother's friend lived, and watching Peador O' Riorda droning dirges at the Aifreann mass in the small church. Long hair. Almost pagan. Bad days, but good too.

[Celeste · Rating 5 out of 5]

short review: i just wish a better future for dymphna...

long review:
saw this book at the bookstore and got sucked in within 3 chapters but didn’t buy it because my track record with literary fiction about families is that i often don’t like it. so i got it from the library and instantly locked in this was SOOOOO good. i couldn’t help but compare to family lore a little bit because that was the last literary fiction book i read but in this one it was easy to tell the characters apart and while i did occasionally consult the family tree i didn’t have to check at the beginning of each chapter. only complaint is that the end was soo open…i want to know what happens to deirdre! to dymphna! it was kind of stressing me out how close she was to being able to find mary o conaill from meath and tell her where teresa/maeve was but she NEVER DID and like to be fair she didn’t know that iggy/zoo was mary’s nephew but AUGHH i wanted teresa to be able to get out of the laundry. going to go place a hold on the cruelty men now.

[Laura Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, Thirsty Ghosts is not your average ghost story. It’s raw, poetic, and totally haunting—but not in the jump-scare way. Emer Martin dives deep into the lives of women who’ve been silenced, erased, or forgotten, and gives them voice through this eerie, lyrical narrative that feels like it’s being told from the edge of a dream.

The writing? Gorgeous. It’s the kind of prose that makes you reread sentences just to savor them. And the themes—grief, motherhood, exile, identity—are woven so delicately that you don’t even realize how hard they hit until you’re sitting there, stunned.

It’s perfect if you want something atmospheric and emotionally rich, with just enough surreal edge to keep you slightly off balance. Trust me, you’ll finish it and feel like the ghosts are still lingering in the room. Read it when you want to feel haunted in the best possible way.

Thank you to NetGalley and The Lilliput Press for this ARC!

[Kev O'Brien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emer Martin has to be one of Ireland’s most talented writers, and Thirsty Ghosts is an outstanding follow-up to The Cruelty Men. Her ability to weave stories from across centuries and make them feel alive and relevant in the present is nothing short of exceptional. The way she connects history and the here and now is beautifully done, making this a powerful and unforgettable read.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this.

[Emma Gareggio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bellissimo

[Giovanna Pipari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro molto particolare che intreccia l’antico col moderno, la tradizione con la realtà, drammatico e divertente allo stesso tempo. Non semplicissimo perché appunto unico.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

i didn’t expect this to be a direct sequel to ‘the cruelty men’ going into it, but i’m so happy that it was! i really adored getting to pick up where it left off & follow a new set of characters throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. i particularly enjoyed the focus on the north and the troubles, as well as its fascinating depiction of the jewish-irish community. deirdre’s pov was my favourite, i think, but martin’s second novel is just as polyphonic and poetic as the first one, so it’s hard to pick one, really. i thoroughly recommend this one!

i received an arc of this novel from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.