Undernose Farm By: Harry Crosbie

‘These wonderfully direct and vivid tales catch the essence of Dublin life half a century ago. They are by turns rambunctious and touching, clear-eyed and accepting, warm though never sentimental, and frequently hilarious. Harry Crosbie has done his native city, and its natives, more than proud.’ JOHN BANVILLE

‘It’d be self-congratulating to say that if Crosbie-the-writer didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him. It’d also be hopeless, because we couldn’t do it. We couldn’t manufacture a writer who knows all the weird, grainy and hilarious stuff Crosbie knows, & magically combine that with the civilized urge to set it all down for others’ delectation. Mark Twain was that sort of writer. Ring Lardner was. Nelson Algren. It’s heartening to know Crosbie’s is not yet a dying art.’ RICHARD FORD