<p>Irish teenager Josephine works as a childminder, but what the families who hire her do not know is that her own childhood, with a drunken single mother and various unsavoury boyfriends, has left a terrible legacy. As she moves from job to job, she leaves a trail of disturbing family destruction.</p>

Minding children

Literature & Fiction

Wall, William

Contemporary

Sceptre

In the tradition of Ian McEwan, an unsettling tale of emotional damage and revenge in a brash and brutal new Ireland. All her life Alice has had to fight to survive. As a child she was sexually abused by the family priest; later she struggled to cope with the death of her sister. But when she marries the wealthy and dangerous Paddy Lynch, she discovers the darkness of his own emotional pain. In this haunting first novel, William Wall depicts the lives of a group of friends and the strategies they adopt to survive in a rapidly changing society. Wealth and power appear to bind them, but it is wealth gained at an intolerable price and power that is little more than the ability to inflict pain. The world of Alice Falling is full of glittering lies and sordid truths, dangerous loves and distant friendships. It builds inexorably to an explosive, "Thelma and Louise"-style ending that will stay with the reader long after the last page and marks the debut of a distinctive and masterly novelist.

Alice Falling

Irish teenager Josephine works as a childminder, but what the families who hire her do not know is that her own childhood, with a drunken single mother and various unsavoury boyfriends, has left a terrible legacy. As she moves from job to job, she leaves a trail of disturbing family destruction.

Minding Children

In an Ireland far removed from the familiar images of travel brochures, a bright teenager is heading for trouble: son of a single mother who has given up, rarely at school, taking drugs, and hovering on the fringes of the city's criminal underworld. When he falls for Pat The Baker's sister his life changes irrevocably, not least because when she gets pregnant, Pat breaks his legs. But as he tries to make a new start and adjust to being a lover and father, he realises he cannot evade vengeance forever. "This is the Country" is a hard-hitting, tense and deeply moving novel that sets power and corruption against the fragile defences of love, friendship and family. As gritty as it is tender, as funny as it is dark, it tells a riveting tale of survival against the odds.

This Is the Country

Literary

This is the Country

SCEPTRE (HODD)

Alice Falling: A Novel

W.W.Norton&Company

The Islands: Six Fictions (Drue Heinz Literature Prize)

WINNER OF THE 2017 DRUE HEINZ LITERATURE PRIZESelected by David Gates  William Wall is the first international winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize.  “Suddenly I see weeks that are like years stretch out before me. Islands are, more than anything else, places of deprivation.”  Jeannie, one of the sisters featured in The Islands, comes to this realization at the age of six or seven, as her father leaves their island home yet again to work on his latest book. In this collection of interconnected stories, the beautiful and ravaging forces of sea and land collide with the forces of human nature, through isolation and family, love and loss, madness and revelation. The stories follow the lives of two sisters and the people who come and go in their lives, much like the tides. Dominated by the tragic loss of a third sister at a young age, their family spirals out of control. We witness three stages of the sisters’ lives, each taking place on an island—in southwest Ireland, southern England, and the Bay of Naples. Beautifully and sparsely written, the stories deeply evoke landscape and character, and are suffused with a keen eye for detail and metaphor.

The Islands: Six Fictions (Pitt Drue Heinz Lit Prize)

Short Stories & Anthologies

University of Pittsburgh Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wall, William. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Wall, William

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wall, William. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Minding children

Alice Falling

Minding Children

This Is the Country

This is the Country

This is the Country

This Is the Country

Alice Falling: A Novel

Alice Falling: A Novel

The Islands: Six Fictions (Pitt Drue Heinz Lit Prize)