The China Factory
Mary Costello
Available as Paperback
The critically acclaimed story collection from the author of Academy Street
Longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award
An elderly schoolteacher recalls the single act of youthful passion that changed her life forever. A young gardener has an unsettling encounter with a suburban housewife. A teenage girl strikes up an unlikely friendship with a lonely bachelor.
In these twelve haunting stories award-winning writer Mary Costello examines the passions and perils of everyday life with startling insight, casting a light into the darkest corners of the human heart.
“This is a writer unafraid of the graveside, or the bedside, of filling the space of the story to the brim. Large events happen in small lives … Her writing has the kind of urgency that the great problems demand … With a bit of luck, they could keep her at the desk for the rest of her life”
Anne Enright
guardian
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“So intricately wrought, so unique and enthralling as to be utterly bewitching”
sunday Independent
“Simply a masterpiece”
irish Independent
“Echoing Thomas Hardy, she reveals how even ordinary lives can be full of drama and incident … Beautifully crafted but never pretentious, Costello’s stories are stark and honest and her characters linger long after you close the book”
books Ireland
“These stories want all of you, mind and body and soul, like a consummation”
Sonya Chung
the Millions
Mary Costello
Mary Costello lives in Galway. Her short story collection, The China Factory (2012), was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award and shortlisted for an Irish Book Award. Her first novel, Academy Street (2014), won the Irish Novel of the Year Award at the Irish Book Awards and was named overall Irish Book of the Year. It was serialised on BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, the Costa First Novel Prize, the EU Prize for Literature and the Prix Littéraire des Ambassadeurs de la Francophonie en Irlande, and has been translated into several languages. The River Capture is her second novel.