Synopsis
‘If you’re looking for this century’s Ulysses, look no further’ - Observer
‘Wildly original’ - Times Literary Supplement
Dan Fogarty is visiting his seventy-year-old sister Una, who is living in a care home in Margate. Una has dementia, but she is still able to recall her youth, spent in a hippie commune in South London. A picture of their family’s history begins to emerge; the Fogartys were evicted from their home of Currabawn in Ireland in the 1950s, and both Dan and Una have been haunted by this forced exile.
A sprawling, dazzlingly inventive novel in verse, Poguemahone cements McCabe’s status as one of Ireland’s greatest writers.
Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.
Details
10 September 2026
9781037404382Imprint: Picador
Reviews
If you’re looking for this century’s Ulysses, look no further . . . a stunningly lyrical novel
Poguemahone is a blistering, brilliant ballad . . . The characters are electric, the narrative fuelled with a brilliant frenetic energy — I loved this great song. McCabe is truly original
McCabe may be right when he claims that Poguemahone is his best book: it is startlingly original, moving, funny, frightening and beautiful
A bleakly comic, wildly original 600-page epic about loss, exile and mental illness . . . Poguemahone is, in content and execution, frequently astonishing . . . in its haunting strangeness and blazing originality, it deserves far more than a cult following
