Hugo Hamilton: Dublin Palms

The palm trees give the street a holiday atmosphere. There must be something in the soil they like. They have straight leaves that get a bit ragged, with split ends. At night you hear them rattling in the wind. The narrator of Dublin Palms has returned to Dublin to set up home with his partner Helen and their two children. Their lives are filled with optimism, but also a sense of dislocation. Overshadowed by the Troubles in the North, their family enterprise begins to come apart. As the creditors line up to be paid, they must consider leaving everything behind. What will they gain when they stand to lose all? In this spectacular novel from the author of The Speckled People, a family tries to hold on in a falling world. It is a powerful story of fragmentation and belonging, of emigrants and people returning home.