2023 Encore Award (shortlist)
'The perfect pick for those missing their dose of Derry Girls' Irish Examiner
'Entertaining, touching and savagely funny' Sunday Times
'Vital, bang-on, and seriously funny' Roddy Doyle
It's the summer of 1994, and all Maeve Murray wants is some money and good exam results so she can escape her shitty wee town in Northern Ireland.
Over the holidays, Maeve bags herself a job at the local shirt factory with her best friends Caroline and Aoife. It's set to be the summer of their lives, but first she's got to survive a tit-for-tat paramilitary campaign as brutal as her relationship with her mam, iron 800 shirts a day to keep her job and dodge the attentions of Handy Andy Strawbridge, her slimy English boss. And when she starts to notice things aren't adding up at the factory, it seems like revealing the truth may just be her one-way ticket out of town.
Genre: General Fiction
'Entertaining, touching and savagely funny' Sunday Times
'Vital, bang-on, and seriously funny' Roddy Doyle
It's the summer of 1994, and all Maeve Murray wants is some money and good exam results so she can escape her shitty wee town in Northern Ireland.
Over the holidays, Maeve bags herself a job at the local shirt factory with her best friends Caroline and Aoife. It's set to be the summer of their lives, but first she's got to survive a tit-for-tat paramilitary campaign as brutal as her relationship with her mam, iron 800 shirts a day to keep her job and dodge the attentions of Handy Andy Strawbridge, her slimy English boss. And when she starts to notice things aren't adding up at the factory, it seems like revealing the truth may just be her one-way ticket out of town.
Genre: General Fiction
Praise for this book
"A wee novel with an enormous, furious heart . . . Honest, hilarious and such a recognisable portrait of 90s Northern Ireland, Factory Girls is an essential read." - Jan Carson
"Full of the stuff that we're starting to expect of Michelle Gallen; wild, hilariously angry characters, and language that is vital, bang-on, and seriously funny." - Roddy Doyle
"A gorgeous, gritty and hilarious love letter to working class Northern Ireland in the 1990s. Gallen's protagonist, Maeve Murray . . . is a compelling creation who crackles brilliantly from the first pages." - Maeve Galvin
"One of the most moving and hilarious novels I have ever read . . . Factory Girls is one of the best books ever written about the Troubles, and one of the best books I've read in a very long time." - Silas House
"Brilliantly observed and full of heart, Factory Girls will be up there on my list of best books for this year." - Sheila O'Flanagan
"Provocative in more ways than one!" - Melatu Uche Okorie
"Full of the stuff that we're starting to expect of Michelle Gallen; wild, hilariously angry characters, and language that is vital, bang-on, and seriously funny." - Roddy Doyle
"A gorgeous, gritty and hilarious love letter to working class Northern Ireland in the 1990s. Gallen's protagonist, Maeve Murray . . . is a compelling creation who crackles brilliantly from the first pages." - Maeve Galvin
"One of the most moving and hilarious novels I have ever read . . . Factory Girls is one of the best books ever written about the Troubles, and one of the best books I've read in a very long time." - Silas House
"Brilliantly observed and full of heart, Factory Girls will be up there on my list of best books for this year." - Sheila O'Flanagan
"Provocative in more ways than one!" - Melatu Uche Okorie
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Used availability for Michelle Gallen's Factory Girls