Ravelling

Set in Dublin's Liberties, Estelle Birdy's explosively original debut Ravelling channels the energies and agonies of young men let loose in the city, their city, navigating the tumultuous trajectory of youth and young manhood, where they balance their hopes with the harsh realities of their present. Hurtling between friendships, feuds, drug-deals, family and brushes with the law, this is modern Dublin as never before portrayed. Ravelling follows Deano, a weed-smoking hurling star, living with his aunt in an about-to-be-demolished flat; Hamza, a Pakistani Muslim atheist and precocious academic, who sells his ADHD drugs to the kids in a private school; Oisín, empathetic and iron-willed, who has begun to see his dead brother at the end of his bed; Congolese nature lover, Benit, who just wants to relax and hurl with the lads; Karl, a maybe-gay fashionista, dreaming of something better while immersing himself in his art. Bound by friendship, place and the memories of those who've died too soon, these young men grapple with race, class, sex, parties, poverty, violence and Garda harassment, all while wondering what it means to be a man in twenty-first century Ireland. Ravelling's diverse, captivating cast of characters, rendered in pin-sharp dialogue reminiscent of Roddy Doyle, leaves the reader with an immersive sense of multi-cultural Ireland. Fast-paced, funny and eye-popping, it descends from Trainspotting, White Teeth and Milkman in its portrayal of urban life in the twenty-first century. Ravelling has been optioned by Sleeper Films for a major TV series.

Estelle Birdy was born in London and spent most of her childhood in Dundalk, Co Louth. She fell in love with Dublin's Liberties when she moved there at the age of nineteen. She is a graduate of UCD's Masters in Creative Writing and has won or been shortlisted for the Dalkey Creates, Penfro Book Festival, Verve Poetry Festival and IWC Novel Fair competitions. The cornerstone of Birdy's writing is the epic nature of the stories of the ordinary and often marginalised people around her. Short story and poetry publication credits include the Unbridled poetry anthology, Sonder Midwest, The Squawkback, Heartland Anthology and The Verve Poetry Festival Anthology. She is a preliminary judge for the RTE Francis MacManus Short Story Competition and reviews regularly for the Irish Times, Sunday Independent and the Irish Independent