The Big Reads of 2013

SHALL WE GATHER AT THE RIVER
Peter Murphy
faber

Peter Murphy’s 2009 novel John The Revelator was one of the most acclaimed Irish debuts of recent times – shortlisted for both the Costa First Novel Award and the Kerry Group Prize for Fiction, and earning the former Hot Press scribe high praise from the likes of Colm Tóibín and Neil Jordan. His sophomore effort, Shall We Gather At The River, is the story of a small town and the great flood that afflicts it. Over a period of 14 days in 1984, nine souls enter the water in a spate of rash suicides... Out this month, it’s a spellbinding piece of work, marked by prose that is by turns haunting, poetic and blackly humorous. [January]

REMEMBERING WHITNEY
Cissy Houston
harpercollins

Despite her well-publicised substance abuse problems and below par comeback tour, when Whitney Houston passed away in a Beverly Hilton bathtub in February 2012 few people saw it coming – except maybe those closest to her. Up to now, her mother Cissy – herself a Grammy-nominated singer – has said little publicly about the tragedy. In Remembering Whitney, she opens up and shares the unbelievable story of her daughter’s life, as well as her own, and addresses Whitney’s brightest and darkest moments. With candour and respect, she sets the record straight about the troubled star, exploring both her turbulent marriage to Bobby Brown and her misunderstood struggles with drug abuse. The book features a foreword by Whitney’s cousin, Dionne Warwick. [February]

THE WORD ON THE STREET
Paul Muldoon
faber

Pulitzer-winner Paul Muldoon has always been Ireland’s most rock ‘n’ roll poet – often performing his work with the Wayside Shrines, a Princeton-based music collective. In this new collection, he goes back to the essential meaning of the term ‘lyric’ – a short poem sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument. Themes will apparently range from lost love, lost wars and Charlton Heston to pole dancers, cellulite and barbed wire. [March]

WAITING TO BE HEARD
Amanda Knox
harpercollins

Destined to be one of the most talked about publications of 2013, former foreign language student Amanda Knox was reportedly paid more than €3 million for her tell-all memoir of the four years she spent in an Italian jail for the brutal 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia. Although she and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were eventually acquitted in 2011, the case remains hugely controversial. Waiting To Be Heard will allow the 25-year-old American to finally give her own version of events and to tell of her ordeal in the Italian justice system. [April]

DISORGANISED CRIME
Alan Croghan
penguin

Subtitled The Remarkable True Story Of A Chaotic Life, Irish journalist Alan Croghan’s memoir is a gripping story of crime, punishment and redemption. From the moment his mother went into labour with him – on an airplane – Croghan’s life was chaotic. As a young boy in Coolock, he drank, smoked and bought Valium – from his father. He rarely attended school, preferring the thrill of joyriding around north Dublin. By the age of 16, he had accumulated 35 criminal convictions – and yet he’d never been locked up. Fearing that his friends suspected he was a tout, he contrived to get himself imprisoned. Disorganised Crime is the story of this wayward young boy, and of the man he became – a criminal and alcoholic who eventually had the strength and courage to give up the drink and go straight. [May]

THE HERBALIST
Niamh Boyce
penguin

Although this debut novel from the winner of last year’s Hennessy Award is set in a small town in rural Ireland in the ‘30s, it’s still a thoroughly modern story. The herbalist of the title is an exotic stranger who arrives out of nowhere and sets out his stall in the market square of a dull midlands backwater. The townspeople call him ‘The Don’, and with his potions and lotions he seems to have a cure for all that ails them. The women in particular seem especially mesmerised by this strange miracle-worker. As the story unfolds, however, it transpires that there’s a far darker side to The Don than anyone suspected. Boyce brilliantly captures the outward respectability of the repressed townspeople, while behind closed doors there is a frisson of violence and sexual frustration. [June]

DOCTOR SLEEP
Stephen King
hodder & stoughton

Although King reportedly hated Kubrick’s movie adaptation, his third novel, The Shining, is still considered one of his best. First published in 1977, the book tells the story of the Torrance family, who move to the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado mountains where father Jack is to act as winter caretaker. He becomes possessed by the evil spirits in the hotel, and attacks his family, but his son Danny – whose psychic abilities have strengthened the hotel’s ghosts – and his mother Wendy eventually escape. 36 years on, King’s highly-anticipated sequel Doctor Sleep will take up the story of a middle-aged Dan Torrance, a man who has “been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence.” [September]

THE GUTS
Roddy Doyle
jonathan cape

Booker-winning author Roddy Doyle first introduced the character of aspiring rock manager Jimmy Rabbitte Jnr in his self-published debut novel The Commitments way back in 1987. Although Rabbitte has made cameo appearances in further novels and short stories (most notably in 2008’s The Deportees), this year will find Doyle revisiting him in a full length work. A sequel of sorts to the Barrytown Trilogy, The Guts is set in contemporary Ireland and finds Rabbitte now in his late 40s, with a wife and four children, and suffering from bowel cancer. He’s also running an internet business resurrecting old bands – using the domain name oldshite.com. [September]

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Courtney Love
macmillan

While controversial rock star, actress and celebrity icon Courtney Love has been the subject of several biographies, and has also previously released her own diaries (2006’s patchy Dirty Blonde), she hasn’t yet published an autobiography. That’s all set to change next autumn with this as-yet-untitled warts and all account of her troubled life and times, from a bleak early childhood in Oregon through international fame and terrible heartbreak to the present day. While the book has presumably been heavily legalled, you can still expect lots of juicy stories about Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, Billy Corgan, Ed Norton, Kate Moss, Gavin Rossdale and a host of other icons. We’re just wondering if she’ll mention her brief stint as a Hot Press snapper back in the early ‘80s… [September]

BRIDGET JONES
Helen Fielding
jonathan cape

The first two Bridget Jones novels, 1996’s Bridget Jones’ Diary and 1999’s The Edge Of Reason, were international bestsellers. Helped by two hit film adaptations starring Renée Zellweger, they were published in over 40 countries and together have sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. Now 17 years after first introducing the hapless singleton to the reading public, Bridget Jones and her complicated love life are making a return. Although no title has yet been released for Fielding’s third novel, it’s reported to be set in contemporary London and will explore “a different phase in Bridget’s life.” Expect at least one embarrassing Twitter meltdown. [September]