The remarkable, funny and thrilling debut novel from the acclaimed, prize-winning author of the short story collections, Young Skins and Homesickness As Ballina prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, the simmering feud between small-time dealer, Cillian English, and County Mayo's fraternal enforcers, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, spills over into violence and an ugly ultimatum. When the reclusive Dev answers his door on Friday night he finds Doll - Cillian's bruised, sullen, teenage brother - in the clutches of Gabe and Sketch. Jostled by his nefarious cousins, goaded by his dead mother's dog and struck by spinning lights, Dev is unwillingly drawn headlong into the Ferdias' revenge fantasy. Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Nicky can't shake the feeling something bad has happened to her boyfriend Doll. Hungover, reeling from a fractious Friday night and plagued by ghosts of her own, Nicky sets out on a feverish mission to save Doll, even as she questions her future in Ballina. The beautifully crafted, thrillingly-told story of two outsiders striving to find themselves as their worlds collapse in chaos and violence, Wild Houses is the long-anticipated debut novel from award-winning and critically-acclaimed short story writer, Colin Barrett. PRAISE FOR HOMESICKNESS ------------ 'A mesmerizingly powerful book, full of the strangeness and beauty of life' SALLY ROONEY, author of NORMAL PEOPLE 'A masterwork - by turns hilarious and heart-breaking... What fierce, tender stories. Totally unforgettable' BRANDON TAYLOR, author of REAL LIFE 'Homesickness is one of the finest collections I've read this year. There is so much life in these pages, captured through the sharpest observations but the lightest touch. Superb' DOUGLAS STUART, author of SHUGGIE BAIN 'Barrett is already one of the leading writers of the Irish short story... He just kills it' ANNE ENRIGHT, author of THE GATHERING 'Addictive, stylish and violently funny stories, with riches on every page - an outstanding collection' KEVIN BARRY, author of NIGHT BOAT TO TANGIER 'Edgy, sharp and utterly original, Homesickness is an utterly compelling collection and Barrett is meticulous' ELAINE FEENEY, author of HOW TO BUILD A BOAT

The second book from the "exact and poetic" (New York Times) author of critical smash Young Skins, winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35, Homesickness is an emotionally resonant and wonderfully wry collection that follows the lives of outcasts, misfits, and malcontents from County Mayo to Canada.When Colin Barrett's debut Young Skins published, it swept up several major literary awards, and, in both its linguistic originality and sharply drawn portraits of working-class Ireland, earned Barrett comparisons to Faulkner, Hardy, and Musil. Now, in a blistering follow-up collection, Barrett brings together eight character-driven stories, each showcasing his inimitably observant eye and darkly funny style. A quiet night in a local pub is shattered by the arrival of a sword-wielding fugitive; a funeral party teeters on the edge of this world and the next, as ghosts simply won't lay in wake; a shooting sees a veteran policewoman confront the banality of her own existence; and an aspiring writer grapples with his father's cancer diagnosis and in his despair wreaks havoc on his mentor's life. The second piece of fiction from a "lyrical and tough and smart" (Anne Enright) voice in contemporary Irish literature, Homesickness marks Colin Barrett out as our most brilliantly original and captivating storyteller.

The remarkable, funny and thrilling debut novel from the acclaimed, prize-winning author of the short story collections, Young Skins and Homesickness As Ballina prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, the simmering feud between small-time dealer, Cillian English, and County Mayo's fraternal enforcers, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, spills over into violence and an ugly ultimatum. When the reclusive Dev answers his door on Friday night he finds Doll - Cillian's bruised, sullen, teenage brother - in the clutches of Gabe and Sketch. Jostled by his nefarious cousins, goaded by his dead mother's dog and struck by spinning lights, Dev is unwillingly drawn headlong into the Ferdias' revenge fantasy. Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Nicky can't shake the feeling something bad has happened to her boyfriend Doll. Hungover, reeling from a fractious Friday night and plagued by ghosts of her own, Nicky sets out on a feverish mission to save Doll, even as she questions her future in Ballina. The beautifully crafted, thrillingly-told story of two outsiders striving to find themselves as their worlds collapse in chaos and violence, Wild Houses is the long-anticipated debut novel from award-winning and critically-acclaimed short story writer, Colin Barrett. PRAISE FOR HOMESICKNESS ------------ 'A mesmerizingly powerful book, full of the strangeness and beauty of life' SALLY ROONEY, author of NORMAL PEOPLE 'A masterwork - by turns hilarious and heart-breaking... What fierce, tender stories. Totally unforgettable' BRANDON TAYLOR, author of REAL LIFE 'Homesickness is one of the finest collections I've read this year. There is so much life in these pages, captured through the sharpest observations but the lightest touch. Superb' DOUGLAS STUART, author of SHUGGIE BAIN 'Barrett is already one of the leading writers of the Irish short story... He just kills it' ANNE ENRIGHT, author of THE GATHERING 'Addictive, stylish and violently funny stories, with riches on every page - an outstanding collection' KEVIN BARRY, author of NIGHT BOAT TO TANGIER 'Edgy, sharp and utterly original, Homesickness is an utterly compelling collection and Barrett is meticulous' ELAINE FEENEY, author of HOW TO BUILD A BOAT

The second book from the "exact and poetic" (New York Times) author of critical smash Young Skins, winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35, Homesickness is an emotionally resonant and wonderfully wry collection that follows the lives of outcasts, misfits, and malcontents from County Mayo to Canada.When Colin Barrett's debut Young Skins published, it swept up several major literary awards, and, in both its linguistic originality and sharply drawn portraits of working-class Ireland, earned Barrett comparisons to Faulkner, Hardy, and Musil. Now, in a blistering follow-up collection, Barrett brings together eight character-driven stories, each showcasing his inimitably observant eye and darkly funny style. A quiet night in a local pub is shattered by the arrival of a sword-wielding fugitive; a funeral party teeters on the edge of this world and the next, as ghosts simply won't lay in wake; a shooting sees a veteran policewoman confront the banality of her own existence; and an aspiring writer grapples with his father's cancer diagnosis and in his despair wreaks havoc on his mentor's life. The second piece of fiction from a "lyrical and tough and smart" (Anne Enright) voice in contemporary Irish literature, Homesickness marks Colin Barrett out as our most brilliantly original and captivating storyteller.

The second book from the "exact and poetic" (New York Times) author of critical smash Young Skins, winner of the Guardian First Book Award and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35, Homesickness is an emotionally resonant and wonderfully wry collection that follows the lives of outcasts, misfits, and malcontents from County Mayo to Canada. When Colin Barrett's debut Young Skins published, it swept up several major literary awards, and, in both its linguistic originality and sharply drawn portraits of working-class Ireland, earned Barrett comparisons to Faulkner, Hardy, and Musil. Now, in a blistering follow-up collection, Barrett brings together eight character-driven stories, each showcasing his inimitably observant eye and darkly funny style A quiet night in a local pub is shattered by the arrival of a sword-wielding fugitive; a funeral party teeters on the edge of this world and the next, as ghosts simply won't lay in wake; a shooting sees a veteran policewoman confront the banality of her own existence; and an aspiring writer grapples with his father's cancer diagnosis and in his despair wreaks havoc on his mentor's life. The second piece of fiction from a 'lyrical and tough and smart' (Anne Enright) voice in contemporary Irish literature, Homesickness? marks Colin Barrett out as our most brilliantly original and captivating storyteller.

Back in 1983 I was chatting with Dick Coleman, publisher of Traffic World magazine, when he unexpectedly proposed that I write a column for the magazine on computer applications in the transportation/physical distribution industry. "But, Dick, I don't know all that much about computers," I protested. "You use one, don't you?" he asked logically. Yes, I did; I'd been running my consulting business with it for two years. But that didn't, I explained, make me an expert. "Think about it," he said. That's typical Coleman; he drops these studiedly casual ideas and just lets them lay there until you pick them up and wind up doing just what he wanted you to do all along. Sure enough, the longer I pondered the notion the more it appealed to me. OK, I wasn't a computer expert (I'm still not). But I was a computer user, in the transportation/distribution field; maybe from that perspective I might have some useful things to say to other transportation/distribution users and would-be users of computers. Thus was born the "Computer Software for Transportation" column. The first one appeared in the April 11, 1983, issue of Traffic World, and it's been a once-a-month schedule ever since. And thus, too, was ultimately born this book.

In the time-worn traditions of the transportation industry, ship pers and carriers regard one another as enemies. There is, to be sure, a certain degree of validity to such a viewpoint. An element of conflict will naturally be present in any vendor-purchaser relationship. The two, after all, are seeking distinctly different things from that relationship; and to a con siderable extent each party's success in realizing its own goals must be achieved at the expense of the other. At the same time, however, viewing that relationship as strictly zero-sum-a gain by one side always resulting in an equal and offsetting loss by the other-is a gross misconception. It overlooks the key reality that, no matter which party comes closest to its own objectives, the relationship, and the business transactions that flow from it, must ultimately benefit both. Without that level of mutual benefit the relationship will simply not exist (or will soon founder if it somehow does come into being); for it is only the self-interest of the two parties that impels them to establish and continue that relationship at all. In transportation, however, this element of mutuality-the attitude that the parties share a common interest in nurturing their relationship-is often forgotten. Instead of working to gether as, fundamentally, partners in a business transaction from which both expect to derive gains, they dedicate the bulk of their energies to fighting, rather than cooperating, with one another."

WINNER OF THE 2014 GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD 'One of the best books of the past decade... The characters are edgy, often violent, locked into a world described in ways that are both harsh and tender. . . Adds a sense of myth, even a spiritual aura, to the narrative that lifts the meanness of the circumstances into some other realm' Colm Toibin, Washington Post *Winner of the 2014 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award *Winner of the 2014 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature This magnificent collection takes us to Glanbeigh, a small town in rural Ireland - a town in which the youth have the run of the place. Boy racers speed down the back lanes; couples haunt the midnight woods; young skins huddle in the cold once The Peacock has closed its doors. Here the young live hard and wear the scars. It matters whose sister you were seen with. If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, it matters a very great deal. Colin Barrett's debut does not take us to Glanbeigh alone; there are other towns, and older characters. But each story is defined by a youth lived in a crucible of menace and desire - and each crackles with the uniform energy and force that distinguish this terrific collection.