Factory Girls
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4.0 • 9 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A funny, fierce, and unforgettable read about a young woman working a summer job in a shirt factory in Northern Ireland, while tensions rise both inside and outside the factory walls.
Winner of the Comedy Women in Print 2022-23 Published Novel Award
It’s the summer of 1994, and all smart-mouthed Maeve Murray wants are good final exam results so she can earn her ticket out of the wee Northern Irish town she has grown up in during the Troubles. She hopes she will soon be in London studying journalism—away from her crowded home, the silence and sadness surrounding her sister’s death, and most of all, away from the violence of her divided community.
As a first step, Maeve’s taken a job in a shirt factory working alongside Protestants with her best friends. But getting the right exam results is only part of Maeve’s problem—she’s got to survive a tit-for-tat paramilitary campaign, iron 100 shirts an hour all day every day, and deal with the attentions of Handy Andy Strawbridge, her slick and untrustworthy English boss. Then, as the British loyalist marching season raises tensions among the Catholic and Protestant workforce, Maeve realizes something is going on behind the scenes at the factory. What seems to be a great opportunity to earn money turns out to be a crucible in which Maeve faces the test of a lifetime. Seeking justice for herself and her fellow workers may just be Maeve’s one-way ticket out of town.
Bitingly hilarious, clear-eyed, and steeped in the vernacular of its time and place, Factory Girls tackles questions of wealth and power, religion and nationalism, and how young women maintain hope for themselves and the future during divided, violent times.
Shortlisted for the 2023 Royal Society of Literature Encore Award (for second novels) and the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Irish writer Gallen (Big Girl, Small Town) offers a sharp chronicle of the coming-of-age of three Catholic teenage girls during the waning days of the Troubles. In the summer of 1994, acerbic Maeve Murray, fancy Aoife O'Neill, and timid Caroline Jackson all take jobs at the shirt factory in their tiny Northern Ireland town while they await their A-level results. Maeve, desperate to get away from the painful memory of her older sister's suicide, rents an apartment with Caroline and daydreams of her escape to journalism school in London while ironing piles of shirts and grappling with her sexual attraction to her shifty British manager, who doesn't return her advances but boosts her wages and has a reputation for sleeping with employees. Aoife, who has her sights on Cambridge, also works an iron but finagles her way into training for a higher-skilled position, while Caroline winds up having to manage her expectations. The three develop a camaraderie as they deal with the disdain and cruelty of their Protestant coworkers and try to figure out their futures. Gallen offers piercing snapshots of the characters' everyday lives amid steady bursts of sectarian violence, such as Maeve's mother getting discounts on shoes after the store's glass is shattered by a bomb. This is lovely.
