Glorious Exploits
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2024
WINNER OF THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION 2024
A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK AT BEDTIME
A BBC2 BETWEEN THE COVERS PICK
'One of the most original and brilliant debuts in years' Irish Times
'Bold and totally unexpected ... I was hooked from the first page' Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain
'Brilliant ... Hilarious, moving, and profound' R. F. Kuang, author of Yellowface
***
Ancient Sicily. Enter GELON: visionary, dreamer, theatre lover. Enter LAMPO: feckless, jobless, in need of a distraction.
Imprisoned in the quarries of Syracuse, thousands of defeated Athenians hang on by the thinnest of threads.
They're fading in the baking heat, but not everything is lost: they can still recite lines from Greek tragedy when tempted by Lampo and Gelon with goatskins of wine and scraps of food.
And so an idea is born. Because, after all, you can hate the invaders but still love their poetry.
It's audacious. It might even be dangerous. But like all the best things in life - love, friendship, art itself - it will reveal the very worst, and the very best, of what humans are capable of.
What could possibly go wrong?
***
'Fierce, funny, fast-paced ... Brings the ancient world roaring to life' Joanna Quinn, author of The Whalebone Theatre
'Love, war, poetry, reckless ambition, terrible failure, and glorious triumph ... A delicious treat of a read. I loved it' Jon McGregor, author of Lean Fall Stand
Sunday Times bestseller, August 2024
Review: One of the most original and brilliant Irish debuts in years * Irish Times *
'The debut novelist to watch ... Remarkable ... This debut is entertaining, vivid, original - and has a huge amount of fun turning the genre on its head ... The premise is irresistible ... Terrific ... A novel to be gulped down' * The i *
Immensely likeable ... Raucously funny ... The writing is beautifully controlled * The Observer *
Bold and totally unexpected, I loved this book. A brilliant novel about friendship, the healing power of art, and why we must fight for our dreams. I was hooked from the first page * Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain *
In At Swims-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien gave us cowboys riding through Dublin. Now, Ferdia Lennon gives us modern-day Dubliners living among the ancient Greeks. This is a very special, very clever, very entertaining novel * Roddy Doyle *
As thrilling for me as the first time I picked up a Kevin Barry novel. Glorious Exploits is exuberant, funny, lyrical and profoundly moving. It is, quite simply, a rare beauty * Sarah Winman, author of Still Life *
Glorious Exploits stinks of misery, despair, love, war, poetry, reckless ambition, terrible failure, and glorious triumph. It's a novel thick with the stuff of the Classics, in other words. A delicious treat of a read. I loved it * Jon McGregor *
Funny, thoughtful, moving, brilliant * Nick Laird, Irish Sunday Independent *
With all the blunt humanity of Roddy Doyle, Glorious Exploits is a vividly conjured vision of the past. Madly ambitious, cathartic like all great tragedy, but shockingly funny too, Ferdia Lennon's outstandingly original debut is just glorious * Emma Donoghue, author of Room *
A blinder of a book, narrated by Lampo in a modern Irish vernacular with all the wit to match. In fewer than 300 pages it also manages to pack in a heap of ideas - about war and art, brotherhood and community, love and loss. A true gem * inews, The Best New Books to Read in January 2024 *