FREE BOOK FRIDAY is here! Select a free book at checkout with every order. Find out more

How can one truthfully represent the creative process of an artist? Oona, an artist-in-the-making, lives in an affluent suburban culture of first-generation immigrants in New Jersey where conspicuous consumption and white privilege prevail, and the denial of death is ubiquitous. The silence surrounding death extends to the family home where Oona is not told while her mother lies dying of cancer upstairs. Afterwards, a silence takes hold inside her: her inner life goes into a deep freeze. Emotionally hobbled, she has her first encounters with sex, drugs and other trials of adolescence.

Lyons' first novel gives voice to a female character on her fraught journey into adulthood and charts her evolution as an artist, as her adolescent dissociation is thawed through contact with the physical world, the materials of painting and her engagement with Irish community, culture and landscape. Set during the era of the Celtic Tiger and its aftermath, this is a resonant story conveyed in an innovative form. Written entirely without the letter 'o', the tone of the book reflects Oona's inner damage and the destruction caused by hiding, omitting and obliterating parts of ourselves.

More Information
ISBN/EAN 9781843517719
Author Alice Lyons
Publisher Lilliput Press
Publication date 1 Mar 2020
Format Paperback
Write Your Own Review
You're reviewing:Oona

Oona

What is the sound of a voice that is alienated from itself?

Estimated delivery in 1-5 working days
Read more about our shipping and delivery