You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here: Winner of the Beryl Bainbridge First Time Author Award

by Frances Macken

Overview

'This atmospheric debut looks like a rural Irish coming-of-age novel, but it’s cleverer, darker, more unreliable.' Daily Mail

AN IRISH INDEPENDENT BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

AN IRISH INDEPENDENT CRITICS CHOICE FOR CHRISTMAS

WINNER OF THE BERYL BAINBRIDGE BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD, 2020/2021

AN IRISH TIMES, IRISH INDEPENDENT and SUNDAY INDEPENDENT 'TITLE TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2020'

Katie, Maeve and Evelyn have been friends forever. Outspoken, unpredictable and intoxicating, Evelyn is the undisputed leader of the trio. But Katie’s dream of escaping their tiny rural town for a new life in Dublin confronts her with a choice: to hold onto a friendship that has made her who she is, or risk leaving her best friend behind.

Told from Katie’s witty, quirky perspective and filled with unforgettable characters, this moving, immersive and very funny study of sisterhood takes a keen-eyed look at the delights and complexities of female friendship, the corrosive power of jealousy and guilt, and the people and places that shape us. Compellingly readable and effortlessly sharp, fizzing with the voices of rural Ireland, this is an unmissable novel from a dazzling new talent.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786077653
Publisher:	Oneworld Publications
Publication date:	08/04/2020
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 8.85(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Frances Macken is from Claremorris, Co. Mayo. She completed a BA in Film and Television Production at the National Film School, Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford and is the author of several short stories. You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here is her debut work of literary fiction.

Editorial Reviews

04/13/2020

Macken debuts with an overfull take on female friendship and the frustrations of early adulthood. Katie Devane grows up in rural Glenbruff, Ireland, with Evelyn, her self-centered best friend, and Katie’s needy adopted cousin, Maeve. At 16, in the 1990s, Katie and Evelyn fantasize of fleeing the depressed town to become great artists, but things change when new classmate Pamela Cooney arrives from Dublin as part of the country’s rural resettlement program. Pamela shows off fresh hip-hop dance moves and looks to Katie “like a doll fresh out of a box.” After Pamela’s unexplained disappearance, the girls continue to rue the attention paid to her. Macken’s narrative skips quickly through time, with Katie leaving for college in Dublin, then graduating and working in advertising. After she burns out at a hyper-stressful agency, Katie returns home in her 20s to a mercurial Evelyn and a newly assured Maeve. A surprise announcement from Evelyn about her film project makes Katie immensely jealous and pushes her into deeper self-doubt about her own aspirations to work in film. Macken’s downplaying of major events, such as Pamela’s disappearance and Katie’s college years, resonates with the solipsism of youth, but can make story lines seem undeveloped. Still, Macken gets a lot of mileage from Katie’s beguiling voice and sardonic humor. In the end, this is too scattershot to make an impact. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

'This was perfect. Shades of Elena Ferrante in the story of a country girl who leaves and the friend who stays behind. Light of touch but not light of substance. Great stuff.'

Kathleen MacMahon

'Frances Macken paints the very real scenario, that we leave, just to say that we did... A breath-taking novel from Irish writer, Frances Macken, shows us that while we may anchor our dreams around others, we can achieve them on our own.'

Waterford News and Star

'Hugely enjoyable, profound and humorous.'

Mayo News

'I loved this one... In some ways, this novel reminded me a fair bit of My Brilliant Friend, just a different time and place, but connected by those themes of friendship, moving on and breaking free.'

Theresa Smith Writes

'Following these young women from their childhood to their 20s, Macken's novel grapples with the successes and disappointments that splinter their friendship. This tension between expectation and reality — between dreams and growing up — becomes a driving narrative force in the novel... Macken thrives in making meaning out of the commonplace...as she traces Katie and Evelyn's friendship from early childhood to adulthood, inviting the reader to follow along.'

NecessaryFiction

'This exploration of the seething hinterland of growing up, with its often unspoken passions, unrequited longings and intense jealousies, is melancholy, funny, dark and affecting.'

author of Reasons She Goes to the Woods Deborah Kay Davies

'Frances Macken's You Have To Make Your Own Fun Around Here charts the friendship of three small-town girls from their childhoods through to their early careers, exploring envy and self-belief with consistent, natural humour and spot-on observations.'

author of Orchid & the Wasp Caoilinn Hughes

'A fresh, clever look at the intricacies and jealousies of female friendship. This debut reads like a modern, mysterious version of Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls.'

Irish Examiner

'Readers will be charmed by the picture of Katie’s circle of friends and acquaintances... Macken's first novel will suit young adult and adult readers alike.'

Booklist

'It's funny, dark and brilliant on toxic friendships. I highly recommend.'

Dublin City Libraries Jackie Lyman

‘You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here vividly captures life in a close-knit community, while examining the intricacies and anxieties of female friendship... Katie is a vibrant creation, whose insights are often fresh and startling... The ups-and-downs of going places is ultimately what makes the narrative come to life.’

Irish Times

'Few writers have articulated the intricacies of friendship – the dependency, the uncertainty, the fragility of the pecking order – with as much authority....a debut bursting with heart.'

Irish Independent

'Written with a keen insight into female friendships and dripping with wit and charm, You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here is a truly immersive story. Macken has a visual eye, bringing simple scenes to life with a carefully chosen word or perceptive detail, and her ear for dialogue is pitch-perfect. The ways in which she captures the pull of the places we call home and the people from our childhoods who shape our lives is also impressive... Reminded me of the best of Maeve Binchy's work, albeit set in a more modern era.'

Reading Matters

'A subtle, powerful debut novel. Quietly packing her emotional punches, never predictable, Macken’s prose is clear-eyed yet lyrical, and in Katie, she has created a truly touching (and at times very funny) protagonist... A new voice in fiction to celebrate.'

author of Patriot or Traitor Anna Beer

'This atmospheric debut looks like a rural Irish coming-of-age novel, but it’s cleverer, darker, more unreliable.'

Daily Mail

‘Small town familiarity meets the Utopian promises of Dublin city as school finishes. Alcohol, grief and the pressure to have 'stories' to bring home to those at home destroy the silvery-spun webs of friendships. Astute and sharp, this is sublime.’

The Book Nook

11/01/2020

Gr 9 Up—Katie, Evelyn, and Maeve have been friends since childhood in a small, sleepy Irish town. They ramble through hot endless summers, dreaming up plans for the future. Evelyn, elegant and rich, is always the leader; homely Maeve, the loser; while Katie floats in the middle. It seems life will never change, until Pamela moves to town and the girls waver between friendship and jealousy. Pamela disappears one day, but after months of searching the case is abandoned. Though life seems to go back to normal for the girls, something has changed, and there is a new tension in their relationship. Narrator Katie subtly draws herself as the more moral and courageous of the girls, but reality does not always bear this out. Macken writes with great insight into the psyches of the girls and their complicated relationship. Small town life is shown with all its hidden anger and jealousies; some petty and small, others cumulative and leading to much greater expressions—perhaps even murder. The characters' races are not specified. VERDICT This evocative, tense, and poignant coming-of-age story will grip readers with its hard dose of reality. Give this to fans of Amy Zhang's This is Where the World Ends and Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends.—Gretchen Crowley, formerly at Alexandria City P.L., VA

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