Publishers Weekly
05/18/2020
In McCartney’s well-written debut, set in Belfast in 1995, the Troubles are nearing an end—there’s a ceasefire, but not yet a peace treaty—but paramilitary groups still loom large and they’re happy to punish anyone who crosses them. This includes the narrator Jacky’s old friend Titch, who shoplifts from a store run by a family of “hardmen.” Jacky knows what will happen, and when Jacky’s efforts to avenge Titch’s beating put him at risk, he flees to London. His parents are dead (one recently, one long ago), and he’s so used to being alone that, after his relationship with a woman he meets in London ends, the ensuing loneliness feels “reliable” and “safe,” until lingering thoughts of revenge and bad news from home draw him back to Belfast. McCartney imbues the tale with a strong sense of place (Jacky’s surprised to find himself missing the light in Belfast, something he hadn’t realized was particular), and informs her meditation on violence’s haunting, and distorting effect on people’s lives through engaging literary references, as Jacky contrasts himself with the tormented protagonists in The Stranger and Crime and Punishment while working to escape his history without losing himself. This quietly satisfying character study will stay with readers. (June)
From the Publisher
‘Several recent novels have taken the Troubles as their theme… The Ghost Factory ranks among the best of these fictions. It is a wonderfully large-souled book’ Guardian
‘Wonderful. I was gripped at times, and surprised by laughter, and bound up helplessly with Jacky's fate. I read sentences that were piercing and true on every page. The Ghost Factory deserves to be a huge success’ Anthony Quinn, author of Freya
‘As a private, intimate reflection on what it was like to live through the worst years of the violence, this novel is unrivalled’ Irish Sunday Independent
‘Deftly plotted and adroitly written, this account of Jacky’s conflicts is mesmeric’ New Statesman
The novel explores the effects, psychological and physical, on victims, families and neighbourhoods. Beyond the darkness, though, it is also a humorous window onto a tightknit community, and a love story, warmly told' Sunday Times
‘This outstanding debut, written with flair and an all-pervasive dark humour, gives a deeply human face to Northern Ireland’s Troubles’ Mail on Sunday
'Friendship, loyalty, love and retribution are the stuff of this violent but emotional and touching novel with a cautionary sting in the tail. Jacky is a well-rounded character, torn between his future and what has gone before. He is given an authentic, engaging voice which pulls in the reader, with well-judged flashes of humour’ Daily Mail
‘Spare, elegant and effective’ The Tablet
‘For those concerned with the everyday practice of human rights violations in Northern Ireland, The Ghost Factory is a landmark in the literature of the Irish Terror. It is about "the pain of others", as the writer Susan Sontag might put it. But it is also about the universal qualities of empathy, friendship, humour, faithfulness and erotic love’ Belfast Telegraph
