SPIT

by David Brennan

Welcome to the village of Spit, where Danny Mulcahy is losing the run of himself, and where, as he and his friends dream of escaping, an unexpected death sets the rumour mill into motion.

Suffering an unexplained, perpetual banishment the Spook of Spit is watching everyone and everything - nothing goes unnoticed. Bearing witness to the village’s half-truths and suppressed secrets, fragments of its own dark and obscured history are unveiled.

As events spiral out of control, the past, present and future are set to collide. Can there be redemption for past deeds? How do you escape when you are fated to remain? What does it take to break free from the confines of Spit?

279 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 17, 2025

About the author

David Brennan currently resides between Ireland and Asia. He has been nominated for the Hennessy New Irish Writer Award 2019.

He was one of the winners of the Irish Novel Fair 2018. In 2016 he won the Frank O'Connor Mentorship Bursary Award and has been shortlisted for the Bristol Short Story award (2017), the Fish Memoire award (2018) and the Doolin Short Story award (2016). He was longlisted for the Colm Tobin Award (2017).

Reviews

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longlisted for the 2026 Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize

SPIT is the second novel by David Brennan after Upperdown, an author from Ireland originally (he left aged 26) and who, via time in Japan, now lives and works in China.

Both novels were published by époque press who are fast who are fast establishing themselves as one of the UK’s most exciting publishers. This is I believe the 17th book from the publisher, and the 8th I've read.

And this is the latest book from the brilliant Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month club, which raises funds that support the UKs most exciting annual book prize, as well as showcasing a collection of books from the vibrant small independent press scene.

And indeed this is époque press's entry for the 2026 edition of the prize, now rebranded as the Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize.

The story is told to us by two different narrators. The first, denoted not by a name (although the blurb has him as the Spook of Spit), but rather by a symbol of the three-horned ram or sheep, is that of a púca, a spirit, tied to the small Irish village of Spit, a community where many yearn to escape (some.like the author, to East Asian) but few do other than into the oblivion of drink or death.

The púca's account opens with him discovering and then inhabiting the body of a deliberately killed dog:

I once inhabited the body of a dead dog for two weeks. I just wanted a rest, I didn't want to see anybody or listen to anybody, you know the way you'd get sometimes, especially round here, with everybody knowing everybody else's business, with those eyes always looking, probing for cracks and weaknesses so that they can burrow in and lay a few eggs.
…
In all my years in Spit I'd never seen anything like it. Sure, Pa seen quickly killed and half buried cows, calves, donkeys, even dead babies buried in ditches near the backs of graveyards. I'd come across suicides, swinging jobs as Radio Molloy called them, lads hanging in the groves and hollows, in barns and from the rafters of houses built by their grandfathers. More often than not, I was first on the scene and last to leave. It would be nice to report that they are still there, their spirits now free, and so on.

But far as I can tell I've never met any of the dead after they are dead, except what's left over: decaying lumps of matter.
…
I'm bound by rules and stipulations different to yours.

The best I could do was tap out a few messages on those bones in the hope she could hear. You know, just a few words like:

I was with you until the end. You were not alone as you rotted. They remember you and miss you. We all have to meet our end sooner or later. At least you fed a few maggots. Don't take it so seriously. Give them another hundred years and they'll all, every man, woman, dog, child, cat and rat, and every other beast in the parish of Spit, be the same as you. The truth is... The truth is a far-away land. I'd nothing much to do, so those tapings on the bone killed away the time. I wanted to promise revenge, but that was beyond me, I'd no way of knowing who'd done it. I'd have to have been granted access to the information, and who would determine that is another story. Tell you the truth, and I'd give any this advice, I've stopped thinking about those sort of things:
Those mysteries.
Those questions.

The second voice is that of Danny Mulcahy, son of the local police sergeant, in his early 20s, studying literature at the local college, from where he brings back drugs he sells to his friends, and overly fond of alcohol:

I pass the day stuck in Dostoevsky counting down the hours till darkness comes, till I can meet up with Nesbit and Bellwhistle. That sentence might sound like Dostoyevsky is a poor companion, he's far from it. I'm on my second round of Crime and Punishment. There's nobody else I'd rather be stuck with - except a woman of course but there's more chances of actually meeting Dostoevsky than that happening. I've never read anything like it. This fellow Raskolnikov might be me, except I was born a hundred years later in the unknown shithole of Spit and he in St. Petersburg under altogether different circumstances. Nobody famous from here and nobody ever will be. Oh, except Matty Slattery's brother who's some kind of Minister. But mark my words. Most never make it out. Bellwhistle talks about it. But he's been a decade talking about it now.

I smoke. Read. Have a wank. Back to the book. Realize I could never be Raskolnikov because I wouldn't have the balls to kill the old woman with the axe. Unless I had a few drinks in me first.

The main narrative drive is catalysed by the infatuation of much of the men-folk of Spit with Rosalyn Delahunty, daughter of one of the two local farmers, "rumours abound as to her origins, how could she, one so beautiful, be born into a family very much on the ugly side." Those in love, or rather in lust, with her include Danny Mulcahy, who is too shy to reveal this; his friend Nesbit, who lost both his adopted parents in the last year, and now owns a piece of land coveted by both the Delahuntys and their rivals the Quinns; the older Pa Quinn; and, somewhat disturbingly, her own brother Michael aka Squint. At the time the novel opens, Nesbit is the one (or one of those) enjoying her sexual affections, unbeknownst to Danny, and to the disgust of Squint, who pleasures himself as he spies on them, before taking out his frustations on a dog.

The tensions in the community come to the fore on the night of the local festival, when villages from all around come to compete for the title of Spit's Rose:

All Spits friends and enemies:
Bus loads from Killballycud, from Templemud, Ballyspud and JohnnyIhardlyknewyou. Droves and hordes from the bogs and hills, from Killbillyguddy and Knockamud and a lonely few from Crownamanagh. From Skinthegoat and Templebeg, out the long boreens of Knockupoldpeg, down the slopes of Foilagoul, Foilduff, Foildarrig, Foilaclug, Foiladuradera and Foilacleara. Yes, from Beattheband, Doaheadstand and Drinkanymanunderthetable, over fence and drain and winding lane, they crawled out of Craythurareyouable. From I'lldrinknomore, Gohometohell the Girlsarewillingandable. All the lads and lasses from Ballydoe, Ballypougemohoin, Lendmeabob, Loboffhisear and Dranktenpints in the morning. From Knockdonee to Tennessey, from Sitonmeknee to Driveonyourass, Dontforgetyourkey and the faithful few from Howsyourmotherforspuds.

A drunken fight breaks out - no one can entirely remember, the next, sober, morning who was fighting who or why (and from the reader's perspective, we hear only the muddled memories), but after a few days they realise Nesbit is missing.

And the púca observes all of this, but not from a position of narrative omniscience, as he finds himself inserted into scenes in media res, particularly those involving a death, rather than free to roam, and not always in linear time (the opening scene with the dog proves to be a later event than those which immediately follow), and at the same time tries to piece together his own story of who he might be, confused memories of a past that may go back centuries triggered by the present day events.

A fascinating and very distinctive novel.

Interview with the author from the time of Upperdown

https://feversofthemind.com/2021/07/0...

Irish Times review of Upperdown

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo...

(Their review of Spit is paywalled)

The publisher

époque press is an independent publisher based in Brighton, with connections to Dublin and New York, established to promote and represent the very best in new literary talent. Through a combination of our main publishing imprint and our online é-zine we aim to bring inspirational and thought provoking work to a wider audience.

Our main imprint is seeking out new voices, authors who are producing high-quality literary fiction and who are looking for a publisher to help them realise their ambitions. Our commitment is to fully consider all submissions on literary merit alone.

Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize judge Stu Hennigan writes:

A wonderfully warm, funny and inventive work that deploys an ingenious narrative sleight-of-hand to allow an omniscient, supernatural entity to observe the all-too-human existence of the inhabitants of a tiny Irish village.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘I once inhabitated the body of a dead dog for two weeks.’

From its opening line you know you’re about to enter a strange world of the author’s imagination. SPIT is a story that marries the struggles of everyday life in an Irish village with the challenging nature of the unending afterlife.

Much of the book is narrated by the ghost of Spit. If it isn’t a contradiction in terms, he’s having an existential crisis. Apart from occasional fragments of past events that come to the surface, he cannot recall who he was in life – although he thinks he might have been a bard – or why he is tied to the village of Spit. ‘It’s only in my dreams I can leave Spit.’ But then by his reckoning he’s been dead over six hundred years so perhaps the memory lapse is to be forgiven.

The ghost is the unseen witness to everything that goes on in Spit, able to remain invisible or take other forms such as a goat (one of his favourites) or, memorably, a wasp in a marmalade jar. He is often the unseen, sole companion of the dead or dying, and is drawn by some invisible force to significant events. However, much like the spirits in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, he is powerless to intervene to change the course of events. ‘I can see them, feel them, taste them, be them even, but I can never alter the nature of their fates. This is my curse.’ His whispered advice goes unheeded and his conversations are by definition one-sided. It’s a lonely life, an eternally lonely life. I have to admit, the ghost was my favourite thing about the book.

Danny Mulcahy is on a metaphorical road to nowhere, drinking himself into oblivion. To be fair, he’s not alone because much of the life of the village is centred on its pubs. ‘Mondays, Tuesday, long days, in the half darkness, the men of Spit know how to drink, day to day, generation to generation.’ Danny’s got to the point where after a night’s drinking he experiences blackouts leaving him with no memory of what he might have done or how he got to the place he wakes up. Inconvenient when one of your best friends dies in mysterious circumstances.

Danny has a troubled relationship with his father, the local police sergeant, who considers him a failure. It’s an assessment Danny shares, to be fair. Family meal times are a silent affair imbued with a constant sense things could kick off at any minute thanks to his father’s short temper. Danny’s life is not a neverending downward spiral though. There are times when his future looks brighter: a period of sobriety and a relationship with a much admired young woman from the village. Only the ghost is witness to the rather gruesome activities she gets up to when alone (or so she thinks). Spit is like a whirlpool that is constantly trying to drag you down and only the strongest, most determined will survive.

SPIT is an unusual book – in a good way. I enjoyed its acutely observed portrait of human failings and its dark humour. But do remember the words of the ghost of Spit: ‘If you wake up screaming in the middle of the night haunted by some nightmare then I’m likely to be sitting on your chest looking into your eyes.’

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Those who follow my reviews know I like to champion small presses and Epoque is one that is quite consistent. Spit is their 17th novel and second from author David Brennan.

The book is split into two narratives. One utilises teichoskopia with an ominous thing who sometimes manifests itself as a goat, when not viewing events its role is to drift into people’s lives, generally when it’s visiting it’s a bad sign. The other is Danny Mulcahy; a man in is early 20’s who can’t stand the small Irish town of Spit and wants to leave.

Things get serious when a murder under mysterious circumstances occurs and Danny has to piece things together in order to trace events. At the same time the ‘spook of Spit’ is conducting it’s on investigation.

An exploration of small town life and the secrets it holds, Spit is a fascinating example of clever storytelling and sharp observations.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Púca, Spook, Jack O Lantern, Will O' Wisps, Changelings, Dullahan, Aos Si, Bean-sidhe, fairy, fairy darts, spells and piseogs, the wee folk, the good people, the little people...and so on. Truth is, I can't direct you, as I don't know myself what it is I am myself.

You can imagine the stress of this.

If Spit have a spirit, I am it.

If Spit has a guardian angel, I am it.

If Spit have a spook, I am it.

If an old brown owl hoots in the dark of night, I'm but a feathers breath away. If the window you are sure you closed is open, then the draft that's blowing in like it's seen something it shouldn't have, that's me too. If you wake up screaming in the middle of the night haunted by some nightmare then I'm likely to be sitting on your chest looking into your eyes. Yes, I do be there in the darkness, I do be there in the shadows, I do be there in the hungry hours, and most of all I do be there when they think there's nobody there.

Longlisted for the 2026 Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize (the first year of the rebranded Republic of Consciousness Prize).

Published by Brighton-based époque press, whose aim to seek “out new voices, authors who are producing high-quality literary fiction and who are looking for a publisher to help them realise their ambitions.”. They were previously longlisted in 2022 for “The Beasts They Turned Away” by Ryan Dennis.

And the China based author’s second novel, but firmly set in his native West Ireland in the fictional eponymous rural village community, with two alternating narrators.

The first – never named – and unsure of his own identity is some form of spirit, who has been tethered to the village after is death for some 500+ years, and does not really either remember his original identity and fate, or understand his current status – for example is he a one-off or part of a wider group. While seemingly tethered to Spit, he seems however to be at times free to roam around (for example enjoying hanging around in bogs, or following others around and even at time conversing with them at least in his/their imagination) at other times suddenly thrust into situations (some of which seem to involve abrupt temporal jumps backwards as well as forwards) – often involving recent death after which he stays with (or even within) the body until its discovery offering some form of companionship or comfort. The book indeed opens with him occupying the body of a dead and seemingly hanged dog.

The second is Danny Mulchaly – the early 20s, alcoholic, small time drug-dealing, literature-studying son of the local police sergeant (who is nicknamed Serge by our first narrator).

The event on which the narratives hinges is a local festival at which all the local villages attend with copious drinking and to crown a local beauty queen. The night itself involves a series of fights and confrontations involving members of the two local and feuding land-owning farmer families – the Delahunty’s and the Quinns, which are not uncentered around the attraction of various villagers to the magnetically attractive, sexually provocative and proclive Rosalyn Delahunty whose active suitors appear to include Nesbit (a friend of Danny who after the death of both adopted parents now owns a coveted smallholding on the boundaries of the two fueding farming families), Pa Quinn (a patriarch of that family), both of them spied on by Michael “Squint” Delahunty – Rosalyn’s rather disturbed and animal disturbing brother. After that festival Nesbit disappears later found dead in a nearby quarry – with Danny the last known person to see him alive but himself entirely unsure of what happened that night.

And as Danny joins alcoholic anonymous, he adds to the list of those infatuated and then sexually active with Rosalyn (who seems to have her own disturbing obsession with captive birds – some of which she feeds and other of which she starves); meanwhile his father tries to close down the investigations of the Dublin police, Squint’s behaviour gets more erratic and no less disturbing and the spirit finds himself gaining more recollection of his past (as possibly an absconding lover of a girl he made pregnant who seems to have a number of disturbing links to Rosalyn).

All of which just about reaches a conclusion – as far as we can interpret given a once and the lapsed alcoholic, and a spirit of uncertain provenance and with a shaky relationship with linear time – as our two narrators.

I would given one trigger warning and raise one reservation. The trigger warning is that the novel starts and ends (and does not really ever stray too far from) violence to animals – which I know is more of an issue for some readers than violence to humans (interestingly during a threatening conversation when Serge is warning Squint off some of his interference, he comments that Squint will get into more trouble for allegations of his animal abuse than any involvement with Nesbit – as that is the way the world is going). My personal reservation is that this is a very unreconstructed male book – almost all characters are men/lads and the only real female characters is both objectified by them and portrayed as both witch and whore – and I guess I was surprised to read that in 21st Century literature.

But overall this is a hugely atmospheric novel with a fabulous sense of place – the dankness of the bog like countryside around spit, as well as its uncompromising culture of drinking and masculinity are extremely well conveyed together with an idea of a community which exists almost outside of time. And the writing is equally well done – darkly humorous, cleverly repeating imagery (of birds/cages/wings, of goats, of bogs) and lyrical sentence making.

I had not thought much of this incident at the time. But now, every memory assumes importance. Flashes of the night: Squint. Rosie. Beautiful Rosie. Nesbit. The other day I remembered Mary Cleary and her brother were there too. Synapses in my brain reconnecting. The hangovers come, pouring the darkness over me like a black thick vomit. It's not the physical effects; rather it's the thoughts, things the likes of which I have difficulty even writing about. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of myself with it, and without it I'm more afraid. The it being referred to here is the alcohol but it's a whole lot more to me, it's the Spirit, the thing contained within the bottle, the magic juice of a condensed and distilled universe. Inside my soul there's a hole and this simple chemical fills it to completion. I continue doing what I'm doing because I know of no alternative, or I'm too scared to face the alternative. A bird trapped in the wind of a hurricane. This cage I keep returning to.

[Pat Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book.

There is a beauty to it, a solace, a loneliness whispering through its pages that feels both original and captivating.
From the very first sentence, “I once inhabited the body of a dead dog for two weeks,” it is clear that the reader is stepping into something out of the ordinary.

The story is largely narrated by a spirit, the spook of Spit, who drifts toward any flicker of activity in the village. Perched in rafters and shadowed corners, the spook observes the locals and their often curious behaviours, offering a vivid portrait of rural village life, where strands of madness seem almost commonplace. The spook watches, always present, yet forever unable to intervene.

Danny Mulcahy has a troubled relationship with his father, the local police sergeant, who sees Danny as a disappointment. Danny grapples with alcoholism, and the author presents an empathetic, unflinching portrayal of the rhythms of his addiction. After a heavy night of drinking, Danny blacks out and cannot remember what happened on the night his friend died.

The village itself is brought to life through its hills, bogs, and sights, as well as through the memorable characters who inhabit it. The writing is enchanting, from the first page to the last — “West wind weeps the willows. I sit by the little stream, hear it trickling down the nape of my neck, breath of winter not so far away now…”

This is a well crafted book that lingers long after the final page. I loved it.

[Sean Burke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant.
As a 24yr old man having grown up and lived in a village in rural Ireland for the most part of my life this book struck a chord with me

This is rural Ireland in all its honesty, repressed sexuality coming out in depraved ways, alcoholism, whispers of an uncle sent to be dried out, petty land wars between hungry farmers, overbearing fathers, suicide, unlived lives, death and decay and a village haunted by a spirit confined to its borders for, it seems, eternity. Then, in the midst of it all, you have Danny, a conflicted young alcoholic, who fancies himself as the sensitive poetic type as well as a bit of a hard man, caught between a deep love for the land and its people and a pressing urge to escape it all.

A whirlwind of emotion, Spit will drag you down to places you don't want to go and then lift you out again, for it is a tale of hope and redemption above all.

Spit. One can't help but think of Shane McGowan spitting poetry into his microphone and this book is written like a McGowan song, fierce, lyrical, poetic, unflinching with an eye that won't look away from the dark corners of humanity. However, a spit comes from the mouth to the ground, to the land and, ultimately, I think this book is a thank you to the land, the spirit of the land for saving Danny.

A visceral, courageous, and skillful work of art, Spit is a novel worthy of widespread acclaim.

[victoria marie]

Longlisted for the 2026 Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize