Strange Flowers: The prejudice of rural 1970s Ireland shrewdly captured
Book review: Donal Ryan’s new novel is set between rural Co Tipperary and London

Donal Ryan: his latest novel is a generational story set between rural Co Tipperary and London. Photograph: Alan Place
Donal Ryan’s latest novel is a generational story of otherness set between rural Co Tipperary and London. Kit and Paddy Gladney are 1970s smallholders whose daughter Moll goes missing and comes back a few years later as if nothing had happened.
When a black Englishman called Alexander Elmwood arrives in Nenagh looking for her, his presence scandalises the surrounding parishes. Moll, it seems, has felt the need for a second flight: this time leaving Alex, who is her husband, and their baby son, Joshua, in London.