Joseph O'Neill

The return of Joseph O'Neill, with a story on the scale of the international phenomenon Netherland: the odyssey of two brothers crossing the world in search of an African soccer prodigy who might change their fortunes.

Back at dinner, somebody said that the goose thinks it’s a dog. No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t think it’s a dog. The goose doesn’t think. The goose just is. And what the goose is is goose. But goose is not goose, Robert thinks. Even the goose isn’t goose. In Good Trouble, the first story collection from Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland, characters are forced to discover exactly who they are, and who they can never quite be. There’s Rob, who swears he is a dependable member of society, but can’t scrape together a character reference to prove that’s the case. And Jayne, who has no choice but to investigate a strange noise downstairs while her husband lies glued to the bed with fear. A mother tries to find where she fits into her son’s new life of semi-soft rind-washed cheeses, and a poet tries to fathom what makes a poet. Do you even have to write poetry? Packed with O’Neill’s trademark acerbic humour, Good Trouble explores the maddening and secretly political space between thoughts and deeds, between men and women, between goose and not-goose.

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2014 The new novel from Joseph O'Neill, his first since NETHERLAND. "O'Neill, in this book, has come of age as a novelist ... a comic masterpiece ... as mordantly funny as the best of stand-up comedy ... Superb' John Banville, New York Review of Books

The debut novel from Joseph O'Neill, author of the Man Booker Prize longlisted and Richard & Judy pick, ‘Netherland’. James Jones is slipping steadily through life. He has a steady job as a junior partner at a solicitor's firm, a steady girlfriend and a steady mortgage. Nothing much is happening in Jones's life but he really doesn't mind – this is exactly the way he likes it. Michael Donovan, meanwhile, is a star – a world-class international lawyer and advocate – he's everything Jones wanted to be and isn't. Jones was once Donovan's pupil and, for a while, it looked like he too would make his name – but he left that high-powered world behind a long time ago, or so he thought. One day Jones reads in the paper that Donovan has collapsed in court – then, out of the blue, Donovan contacts him; he has a job he needs Jones to work on… Joseph O'Neill's debut is wonderfully clever and comic novel – about ambitions and aspirations and the realities that they inevitably collide with.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK - NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST - From the acclaimed author of Netherland (a New York Times Book Review Best Book of the year): the odyssey of two brothers crossing the world in search of an African soccer prodigy who might change their fortunes. Mark Wolfe, a brilliant if self-thwarting technical writer, lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Sushila, and their toddler daughter. His half-brother Geoff, born and raised in the United Kingdom, is a desperate young soccer agent. He pulls Mark across the ocean into a scheme to track down an elusive prospect known only as "Godwin"--an African teenager Geoff believes could be the next Lionel Messi. Narrated in turn by Mark and his work colleague Lakesha Williams, Godwin is a tale of family and migration as well as an international adventure story that implicates the brothers in the beauty and ugliness of soccer, the perils and promises of international business, and the dark history of transatlantic money-making. As only he can do, Joseph O'Neill investigates the legacy of colonialism in the context of family love, global capitalism, and the dreaming individual.

Criminals, drifters, beggars, the homeless, immigrants, prostitutes, tramping artisans, street entertainers, abandoned children, navvies, and families fallen on hard times a whole underclass of people on the margins of society passed through Victorian lodging houses. These places were to be found in almost every city and town and they were central to working class life. The Jack the Ripper murders of 1888 brought lodging houses to the attention of an appalled public and, labelled seedbeds of infectious disease, they were seen as training schools for criminals and conmen of every description. The reality, however, was more complex as lodging houses also provided for those scratching a living, and sheltered those who refused to enter the workhouse. Joseph O'Neill's fresh research into this lost world of the night-time havens of the wandering tribes flings open the door to the nineteenth century lodging house, and tells the forgotten stories of those who spent their nights sharing beds with bugs, thieves, and much worse…

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK - NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST - From the acclaimed author of Netherland (a New York Times Book Review Best Book of the year): the odyssey of two brothers crossing the world in search of an African soccer prodigy who might change their fortunes. Mark Wolfe, a brilliant if self-thwarting technical writer, lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Sushila, and their toddler daughter. His half-brother Geoff, born and raised in the United Kingdom, is a desperate young soccer agent. He pulls Mark across the ocean into a scheme to track down an elusive prospect known only as "Godwin"--an African teenager Geoff believes could be the next Lionel Messi. Narrated in turn by Mark and his work colleague Lakesha Williams, Godwin is a tale of family and migration as well as an international adventure story that implicates the brothers in the beauty and ugliness of soccer, the perils and promises of international business, and the dark history of transatlantic money-making. As only he can do, Joseph O'Neill investigates the legacy of colonialism in the context of family love, global capitalism, and the dreaming individual.

From the PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of Netherland comes a collection of stunning, subversive, wryly comic stories that reveal the emotional depths and surprising beauty of life in the twenty-first century. A poet confronts the state of his art when asked to sign a petition-in-verse to free Edward Snowden. A man attending a wedding in Tuscany seeks a moment of solace with a friendly goose. A father uses a tracking app to follow his son's stolen phone, opening wider questions of the world and its dangers. In these flashes of trouble, O'Neill unearths the real, secretly political consequences of our ordinary lives. No writer is more incisive about the world we live in now.

First published in 1935, Land Under England is a genre-transcending exploration of personal agency and fascism.

A New York Times Notable Book Nominated for the Man Booker Prize In this extraordinary, both comic and philosophically profound novel, the acclaimed author of Netherland uncovers the hidden contours of a glittering Middle Eastern city--and the quiet dilemmas of modernity. When our unnamed hero, a self-sabotaging and oddly existential lawyer, finds his life in New York falling apart, he seizes an opportunity to flee to Dubai, taking a mysterious job for a fabulously wealthy Lebanese family. As he struggles with his position as the "family officer" of the capricious Batros brothers, he also struggles with the "doghouse," a condition of culpability in which he feels trapped, even as he composes endless electronic correspondence--both sent and unsent--in an attempt to find a way out. An unforgettable fable for our globalized times, The Dog is told with Joseph O'Neill's hallmark eloquence, empathy, and stylistic mastery.

A thrilling account of the events surrounding the execution of three Fenians known as the Manchester Martyrs. Their execution during a turbulent period of Irish history in 1867 united the Irish people in a patriotic fervour and outrage not matched until 1916. The events surrounding the dramatic rescue of Fenian leaders (resulting in the Martyrs' execution) attracted worldwide attention and sparked anti-British protests across the globe. Their trial is one of the most infamous British court cases of the nineteenth century and their hanging was Britain's last public multiple execution. In 2006 Bertie Ahern announced that the Irish government would grant the Martyrs a full state funeral and re-inter them in a grave at Glasnevin Cemetery. The plan foundered because their remains could not be located at that time. This book reveals the location of the remains and explains why they will never be returned to Ireland.

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - WINNER OF THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD - "Netherland tells the fragmented story of a man in exile--from home, family and, most poignantly, from himself." --Washington Post Book World In a New York City made phantasmagorical by the events of 9/11, and left alone after his English wife and son return to London, Hans van den Broek stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket, where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with a charismatic and charming Trinidadian named Chuck Ramkissoon, begins to reconnect with his life and his adopted country. As the two men share their vastly different experiences of contemporary immigrant life in America, an unforgettable portrait emerges of an "other" New York populated by immigrants and strivers of every race and nationality.

Michael Malia's The Black Shore is actually the final novel of Irish writer and civil servant Joseph O'Neill. It points to the fact that his previous novels were carefully crafted metaphors for the bitter contempt in which he regarded his fellow countrymen, their culture, values, and religion. Thus, The Black Shore serves the purpose of bringing all O'Neill's works together and casting them in an altogether different light than previous criticism. Illustrated.