Karl Geary

Karl Geary discusses his new novel, Montpelier Parade with Ethel Rohan.

Praise for Montpelier Parade

“Luminous and moving. A story that asks who you can love and how, and a novel that gets to the heart of things; it certainly got to the heart of me.” —Sunjeev Sahota, Man Booker Prize shortlisted author of The Year of the Runaways

“Geary — who has previously worked as an actor and scriptwriter — is a genuine talent. The sense of intimacy created by the second-person narrative is brilliantly sustained and the dialogue throughout is pitch perfect, seeming almost audibly to slice the always pregnant, often suffocatingly toxic atmosphere.” —Daily Mail (UK)

“The work of a deft, fearless writer … evoking the subtly dark comedy of Patrick McCabe, and the delicious lyricism of Peter Murphy, Geary has a keen recollection of the folly and hunger of youth. Add in a gut-spinning plot twist, and it’s safe to describe Montpelier Parade as one of the first significant releases of 2017.” —Irish Independent

About Montpelier Parade

Montpelier Parade is just across town, but to Sonny it might as well be a different world. Working with his father in the garden of one of its handsome homes one Saturday, he sees a back door easing open and a beautiful woman coming down the path toward him. This is Vera, the sort of person who seems destined to remain forever out of his reach.

Hoping to cast off his loneliness and a restless sense of not belonging―at high school, in his part-time job at the butcher shop, and in the increasingly suffocating company of his own family―Sonny drifts into dreams of a different kind of life. A series of intoxicating encounters with Vera lead him to feel he has fallen in love for the first time, but why does her past seem as unknowable as her future?

Unfolding over a bright, rain-soaked Dublin spring, Montpelier Parade is a rich, devastating debut novel about desire, grief, ambition, art, and the choices we must make alone.