25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Rick O'Shea: I wouldn't want to live in the world of Strumpet City but I keep going back there
James Plunkett's novel makes utterly real the small aspirations and awful inequalities of the years before the Easter Rising
I'm taking you to dark, less comfortable places this week, and with good reason. Every year I throw an eye over my reading list to see where the gaps have been, and to see if I'd like to nudge the balance a bit. Some years this meant adding in a few thrillers, or some older books that I'd always wanted to try; in recent years it has meant seeking out more writing in translation.
When I was growing up, everything I read was for escape – the Famous Five, Three Investigators, the Hardy Boys and a lot of science fiction. I graduated into graphic novels when I was a teenager. Watchmen, V For Vendetta and Alan Moore's Batman series The Dark Knight Returns scratched itches I didn't even know I had. When I was in college, the escape was to America – I tried Joseph Heller, Bret Easton Ellis, and Tom Wolfe. You could say the same about the films I went to, the music I listened to, the TV I watched.
