Contemporary Authors

• Eggshells: A Novel Liberties Press (Dublin, Ireland), 2015, Melville House (Brooklyn, NY), 2017

1. Eggshells : a novel LCCN 2016024545 Type of material Book Personal name Lally, Caitriona, author. Main title Eggshells : a novel / Catriona Lally. Edition First edition. Published/Produced Brooklyn : Melville House, [2017] ©2015 Description 273 pages ; 21 cm ISBN 9781612195971 (hardcover) CALL NUMBER PR6112.A485 E38 2017 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms 2. Eggshells LCCN 2014481445 Type of material Book Personal name Lally, Caitriona, author. Main title Eggshells / Caitriona Lally. Published/Produced Dublin : Liberties, 2015. Description 253 pages ; 22 cm ISBN 9781909718999 (pbk.) 1909718998 (pbk.) Shelf Location FLS2015 159748 CALL NUMBER PR6112.A485 E38 2015 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLS2)

• The Irish Times - https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/caitriona-lally-on-writing-eggshells-from-the-dole-to-a-debut-novel-1.2219513

  Caitriona Lally on writing Eggshells: from the dole to a debut novel
  A first-time author’s compelling and frank account of the impact of losing a job and how the experience formed her as a writer

  Wed, May 20, 2015, 12:30 Updated: Wed, May 20, 2015, 12:36
  Caitriona Lally
  Caitriona Lally: “After almost a year, I found a minimum-wage job that felt like winning the Lotto. It was only when I had the security of paid work, and the sense of shape to the week that a job provides, that I finally had the confidence to move from my paper-scraps and notebooks to an empty computer screen, and begin writing Eggshells”
  Caitriona Lally: “After almost a year, I found a minimum-wage job that felt like winning the Lotto. It was only when I had the security of paid work, and the sense of shape to the week that a job provides, that I finally had the confidence to move from my paper-scraps and notebooks to an empty computer screen, and begin writing Eggshells”

  In the summer of 2014, I got word that Liberties Press was interested in publishing my first novel, Eggshells. Three years previously, I had kept notebooks to record conversations I’d overheard on Dublin Bus, along with interesting graffiti and street signs I’d seen in Dublin, and these notebooks formed the basis of Eggshells. I had been made redundant from my abstract writing job in the summer of 2011. The timing was not ideal. I’d bought a house at the peak of the housing market so I was steeped in negative equity; now I’d been laid off in the year unemployment reached more than 14 per cent. The company I worked for was bought up by an American giant which swallowed up our Irish office and spat us out onto the dole queues.
  I’d never been drawn to job status. I’d never had a job that made people look at me with respect, but I had always worked and I hadn’t realised how important that was to me. I don’t particularly identify my sense of self with a career, but still I felt unmoored by the lack of stability.
  While I was unemployed, I spent a lot of time waiting. Waiting in line at the dole office to sign on, waiting in line at the post office for my dole, waiting for appointments at the Fás office, waiting on lists for Fás courses, waiting for responses from job applications.
  News reports about unemployment always show the backs of people’s heads or just their feet outside social welfare offices; I was almost surprised to see that unemployed people had faces, and bodies attached to their feet.
  I applied for hundreds of jobs: jobs in data entry, administration, retail, housekeeping, customer service, hotel & catering, marketing, publishing. I carried out an online test for a cleaning job in a five-star hotel. There were pictures of hotel rooms and corridors and grounds accompanied by questions about what was dirty or out of place in the picture. In spite of several college summers spent working as a cleaner, I failed to get called to interview.

  At a time when vacant positions received so many applicants, the vast majority of companies didn’t bother to send rejections. Rejections I could cope with; the certainty was easier to deal with than the waiting and hoping.
  It was hard to retain a sense of identity when I was tweaking my personality for every job application. I constantly rearranged my CV and letters of application. I was hopeful at first, believing well-meaning people who talked about all these doors that were going to open after the first one closed, but there were more brick walls than open doors that year.
  It’s difficult to describe the punch in the gut that redundancy gives you. Even though I hadn’t been fired, even though I was lucky enough to be part of a large group that had been laid off, it still felt personal. It’s only when you don’t have a paid job that you realise how often the subject of work comes up in conversation. People you meet for the first time ask what you do for a living, friends talk about their jobs; you have nothing to contribute. Since my experience of joblessness, I ask people if they work rather than where they work.
  I did an internship. I did a couple of Fás courses. It was helpful to meet others who had also been flung onto the dole-heap, to swap war stories of shoddy treatment at the hands of former employers, to trade tips on where to buy the cheapest groceries.
  I wrote an essay. I attempted a couple of short stories. I tried to get them published but they were turned down. Continual rejection got tiresome, so I decided to write a novel, if only to postpone the eventual rejection. Also, writing a novel would feel like an achievement in itself, even if it was never published. I didn’t know how to start a novel so I started to keep a notebook.
  Your sense of time changes when you stop working. Hours feels looser with fewer deadlines; the individual days of the week lose their meaning.
  I spent a lot of time wandering around Dublin. I would walk from my home in Cabra into town, noticing how street signs had some of their letters missing. I wrote the changed letters of these street names in a notebook, wondering what had happened to these letters. I decided my main character, Vivian, was a woman who believed she was a changeling and was seeking a way back to her original world. Vivian is an outsider who wants to belong. She tries to find a pattern or a code in these blue-ed out street signs, messages written in toilet cubicles, graffiti on walls, in order to find a way back home.
  Changelings have always fascinated me: that sense of not belonging, the belief that there’s another world in which you belong. I walked the city looking for “thin places”, places that in Celtic mythology were believed to be portals to the Otherworld. I looked through an old map of Dublin and made a list of magical, otherworldly sounding placenames. Vivian visits these places in an attempt to find the portal.
  I decided to make Vivian jobless, to heighten the sense of not belonging, of being separate from the crowd. But Vivian’s situation differed from mine in one important way: she had no financial worries. Worrying about a boom-time mortgage in a recession, wondering if any employer will ever respond to your job application nibbles away at the soul. I wanted to spare Vivian that. I wanted to spare myself reliving that. I wanted to write the fantasy of having a house that was paid for and lots of money in the bank.

  Vivian regards her job-hunting “as more of a hobby than an action that could produce results” and this is how I felt after endless rounds of applications. Vivian and I also shared a similar approach to job-hunting:
  “I type ‘Assistant’ into the search box of the job website. I have no particular skills or experience so I can’t be in charge of anything or anybody, but maybe I can assist at something.”
  While living like Vivian, I made attempts to connect with people in an indirect, anonymous way. I put €5 notes in the pockets of cardigans that tend to be bought by elderly women. I wrote strange messages in books and donated them to charity shops. To this day, I still wonder what the person who bought the second-hand book from a Phibsborough charity shop made of the message:
  “Zolanda,
  The sardines have eluded us yet again.
  Some day, Zolanda; some day.”
  After almost a year, I found a job: a minimum-wage job that felt like winning the Lotto. I had colleagues again, and money appeared in my bank account every month. It was only when I had the security of paid work, and the sense of shape to the week that a job provides, that I finally had the confidence to move from my paper-scraps and notebooks to an empty computer screen, and begin writing my novel, Eggshells. I wrote before work and after work and at weekends. I wrote in bed and at the kitchen table and in the library. Some days I wrote 10 words; other days I wrote a thousand. I kept the character of Vivian obsessively in my head, which was good for my writing and bad for my personality.
  I entered the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair in order to give myself a deadline, to stop me dragging out endless tweaks and rewrites. I was picked as one of 12 finalists and, as a direct result of the fair, I got an agent and a book deal with Liberties. Now, holding Eggshells in my hand, the physical result of words from my head, is worth anything.
  Shaking off the character of Vivian after the book was finished was a relief tinged with sadness. I enjoyed writing her, but interpreting the city through her strange mind was intense. I walked Dublin with my legs and Vivian’s eyes, and sometimes it was hard to distinguish between the two.
  After a couple of desk jobs, I realised that sitting all day in front of a computer made me dread writing in the evenings. I got a cleaning job, which, apart from the 4.40am starts, fits in perfectly with my writing efforts. Working hard physically means I look forward to sitting down to write. I find satisfaction in making a dirty surface clean again, in completing a task before moving on to the next one. And the rhythm of scrubbing and hoovering spurs unconnected thoughts: I keep a notebook in my cleaning smock to scribble anything useful that comes into my head as I work. Even better, I have most of the day free to promote the first book and write the second book, as long as I can resist the lure of the pillow.

• Melville House - https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/eggshells/

  CAITRIONA LALLY studied English Literature in Trinity College Dublin. She has had a colorful employment history, working as an abstract writer and a copywriter, as well as a home helper in New York and an English teacher in Japan. She has traveled extensively around Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and South America. Caitriona was shortlisted for “Newcomer of the Year” in the Irish Book Awards in 2015.

• TN2 Magazine - http://www.tn2magazine.ie/walking-on-eggshells-caitriona-lally-interview/

  Walking on Eggshells – Caitriona Lally Interview

  by MICHAEL MULLOOLY

  September 29, 2015

  Meeting debut author Caitriona Lally in the Book Upstairs Café on D’olier Street, I was extremely relieved to discover that unlike her novel’s main character, her hair wasn’t brittle and her hygiene was impeccable. The stinker in question, Vivian, is a woman of unknown age who lives alone in the house she inherited from her great-aunt, along with a bunch of chairs and a rapidly deteriorating pet known as Lemon Fish. She is, as Lally sums up for me, “bonkers.” Eggshells records a series of walks Vivian takes through Dublin in her efforts to find a portal to the otherworld. Settling down with a mug of tea and a latté, I began to talk with the creator of one of the strangest and foulest smelling characters ever seen in fiction.

  How have you found being a novelist?

  Surreal… you just see your name in the paper or you go into a bookshop having forgotten and all of a sudden it’s “Oh gosh! There’s me on a table!” Moments like that are just bizarre.

  There was no specific routine; I’d write it in bed, at the kitchen table, a desk. I did try for the 1,000 words a day. Sometimes I got more, sometimes I didn’t get there, but I did always try and I think you should.

  Tell me about the publishing process, how did you get in touch with Liberties Press?

  There was a Novel Fair Competition in the Irish Writers’ Centre, which I advise anyone who wants to write to enter. It gives you deadlines and the motivation to keep writing. Basically October 16th was the deadline and you had to submit 10,000 words by then as well as a synopsis, and then you only find out if you’ve won a place in the Fair in February, so you have to have a full novel by then in case you win it, which gives you another deadline. In February I got the call, twelve of us won a place, and then you have a day of meeting publishers and agents and I got one of each out of that. It was amazing but it was also really intense. You meet a lot of different people and you have to know everyone and their preferences so you know what they publish. You really had to study up. So going into it I knew that Liberties Press could be interested in the novel because they do quirky independent stuff .

  Did you have any sort of writing routine? Did you go on the walks and plot them out on greaseproof paper like Vivian did?

  I did go on the walks, and a lot of what ended up in the book is from conversations I overheard. People just have no filter. I didn’t have any routine when writing Eggshells though, no. Back in 2011, I was made redundant and was unemployed for a year and it was literally a year of just trying to stay sane, and I started the notes for the novel back then. I only started actually writing it when I got a job. I was working 12 to 9, kind of a strange shift, and I started squeezing in hours before work and after work. I’d often go to the Kildare Street National Library to write as well. I ended up just slotting it around whatever I was doing at the time. So there was no specific routine; I’d write it in bed, at the kitchen table, a desk. I did try for the 1,000 words a day. Sometimes I got more, sometimes I didn’t get there, but I did always try and I think you should. There’s no point getting precious about it and saying, “oh, the muse hasn’t come”, when you can just force yourself to get something down. Even if you write 1,000 and then end up deleting 800 the next day, that’s grand because you’ve still moved forward. So I definitely feel you should force yourself to always write something at least.

  Was it tough writing a character who was…

  Bonkers? Extremely. There was no routine, no method acting, but it was hugely intense. There’s a lot of sadness in her and there’s a loneliness to her which I found very hard to write. She has no friends, or family who like her, and I can’t really imagine that.

  Having travelled widely yourself, were you tempted to send Vivian away on a trip at any point?

  Yes, it was really claustrophobic keeping her within a small part of Dublin; you’re writing in a mad person’s head in a very small area. But that was deliberate and added to the intensity. Dublin is a very small city

  Both Vivian and her friend Penelope agree that “Hygiene is overrated.” Why’d you decide to write a character who treats cleanliness with suspicion and inhales her own musk as often as she can?

  I think it’s just that female characters often in books are very glamorous. There’s smelly guys in fiction, but I’d never read about a woman who’s just stinking and loving it! Speaking of female characters, there are very few male characters in Eggshells, and the ones who are in it only have minor roles.

  Lally(8x10)bw003

  Nowadays everything’s about going to therapy and talking, and talking, and talking, and I didn’t want her to have a big emotional climax, I wanted her to go through life keeping a lot repressed because that’s what a lot of people do. A lot of people do have traumas that they don’t process, deal with, and move on.

  Was this a deliberate decision?

  No, it wasn’t a deliberate thing. Vivian was a female from the start purely because it was my first book and also writing someone like her was hard enough as it was. Because of the kind of character she is, I just thought it was too big a leap to have a male friend. It would have sparked an “Is there a romance going on?” and there’s never going to be a romance with Vivian. And she’s just such an odd person that I thought she’d have an easier time dealing with females. So it was just to suit the character, but it was only afterwards that someone pointed it out to me that I realised how few male characters there actually were.

  There’s no big reveal in Eggshells, a lot of Vivian’s backstory remains shrouded in mystery. Was this your plan from the start?

  It was. It definitely bothered a lot of people that I never explained Vivian’s backstory, but I wanted her to repress it. Nowadays everything’s about going to therapy and talking, and talking, and talking, and I didn’t want her to have a big emotional climax, I wanted her to go through life keeping a lot repressed because that’s what a lot of people do. A lot of people do have traumas that they don’t process, deal with, and move on.

  There’s not much plot in Eggshells either, was this deliberate too?

  No, that just came about with how the book was written, with me going on those walks. But you do write the book you want to read, and I love reading books that aren’t perfectly plotted and aren’t all wrapped up tidily at the end. I used to hate those books, they drove me mad, but I’ve gotten more into that lifelike style. I can see how that would drive some people crazy though. Some reviewers have said if you want a plot then don’t buy this book and I would say that too.

  How’d the title Eggshells come about? Did you have it from the start?

  No, I didn’t have a title until the morning of the Novel Fair, and I was filling out the sheet and I just put “Eggshells”, because I had saved it as “Untitled (2)” on my computer up to that point! I Googled “Eggshells” and it hadn’t been used so I was like “ok, there’s my title.” But when they rang me to tell me I’d won the Fair place, I immediately asked would I be able to change the title, because I had just made it up on the spot. They told me I had to keep it for now but I could change it at a later point. And then when I met my agent I asked her if I could change it then, and she said she liked it, and Liberties liked it, so it stuck.

  At one point in the novel Vivian lists the sort of questions she feels should be asked by interviewers, so brace yourself. If a cup of tea was put in your hand right now, what would your ideal biscuit be? You can do top three.

  Hmm. Ok, I will go for Toffee Pops, but they’re very sweet so you have to be in the mood for that. I’m a real chocolate person, so a dark chocolate Hobnob or Digestive, but it has to be dark chocolate now. And then there’s a biscuit, I don’t know what they’re called, you get them free sometimes at cafés and they have a wrapper on them. They’re almost like caramel-y, but it’s a plain biscuit. I don’t know what they’re called but I will look them up. See I’m more a cake person than a biscuit person, so this is a tough question.

  If water had a colour, what should it be? Not what would it be, but what should it be?

  Red. A deep red. Just imagine a red swimming pool.

  Truly these are the hard-hitting reporter questions that need to be asked. Are there any plans for a second book?

  I’m working on a second book now, nothing to do with Vivian, but who knows, maybe she’ll have a cameo role. But it’s going to be completely diff erent, and set in Hamburg. I’ve done Dublin now, for the moment anyway, I might come back some day. Unlike Eggshells which was about one person, this one’s going to be dual characters, brother and sister. It’s nicer writing about two, it’s a lot less stress than writing about one character only, I can split the effort between them.

• The Qwillery - http://qwillery.blogspot.com/2017/03/interview-with-caitriona-lally-author.html

  Thursday, March 16, 2017
  Interview with Caitriona Lally, author of Eggshells

  Please welcome Caitriona Lally to The Qwillery as part of the 2017 Debut Author Challenge Interviews. Eggshells was published on March 14th by Melville House.

  TQ: Welcome to The Qwillery. When and why did you start writing?

  Caitriona: Like most writers, I spent a lot of my childhood reading and making up extremely derivative stories in copybooks, based very closely on what I had just written. The words “THE END” written in bubble writing would make up a large proportion of the story. Then I fell out of the habit as I grew into the teenage years, and it wasn’t until my early 30s that I did an evening class in creative writing, which got me back into inventing stuff. I realised I found the short story form difficult so I decide to try my hand at writing a novel. And that’s when Eggshells came about.

  TQ: Are you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid?

  Caitriona: I’m a pantser. Not by choice, I just struggle with plotting. Any time I’ve tried to plan which way the story will go, the character seems to take on a life of its own as I get further into the story, and pushes the plot in a different direction. Eggshells is more character-driven than plot-driven, so I just followed the character’s adventures and wanderings around Dublin.

  TQ: What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?

  Caitriona: Probably finding the time to write, or more accurately, forcing myself to make the time to write. Eggshells was my first novel and I squeezed in the writing of it around a full-time job. Now I’m working early mornings and I find that doing interviews and other writing work with tighter deadlines tend to take precedence over the main work of writing my second novel. When you’re tired, you tend to prioritise work with immediate deadlines, so motivation to put the novel-writing first is my biggest challenge.

  TQ: What has influenced / influences your writing?

  Caitriona: My childhood and adult reading. My interest in fairytales and mythology comes through in my book. And my obsession with maps – walking and mapping my character’s routes around Dublin came from my love of maps. I struggle to understand maps in a practical way, but I love looking at them as imaginative works.

  TQ: Describe Eggshells in 140 characters or less.

  Caitriona: Misfit Vivian, who believes she’s a changeling, walks Dublin’s streets looking for a portal to another world where she thinks she’ll belong

  TQ: Tell us something about Eggshells that is not found in the book description.

  Caitriona: I had never had anything published before I wrote Eggshells, so it felt like a leap in the dark. I had tried – and failed – to get short stories, essays, articles published, and had nothing but rejection so I decided to write something longer that would feel like an achievement in itself, even if it never got published. So eventually seeing my name on the cover of a book was extremely exciting!

  TQ: What inspired you to write Eggshells? What appealed to you about writing a genre bending novel?

  Caitriona: I didn’t set out to write a genre-bending novel; in fact I didn’t realise that Eggshells could be called that until I read your question! I didn’t think about genres when I started writing, I just followed the voice of Vivian and concocted adventures and walks and plans for her as I went along. I had been made redundant from my job during the recession in Ireland, and spent a year job-hunting and walking aimlessly around the city – and Vivian came from this time, this sense of not belonging, of seeking something that was difficult to find: in my case a job, in her case a portal to another world.

  TQ: What sort of research did you do for Eggshells?

  Caitriona: Vivian walks pre-planned routes around Dublin to magical-sounding places in an attempt to find a portal to the otherworld. I scoured atlas indexes and maps of the city to source fairytale-like places. Then I walked all her walks around the city and took notes of buildings and street signs with letters missing (which Vivian believes could form patterns or codes which would lead her to another world). Then when I got home, I plotted the routes of my walks on an old map to see what kind of shape I walked – exactly what Vivian does.

  TQ: Please tell us about Eggshells' cover.

  Caitriona: The background is a map of Dublin, which I’m thrilled with – I love maps and I think it helps to put Vivian’s walks in context, for readers outside of Dublin. In the centre is an image of Lemonfish, a slightly poorly goldfish missing a few scales that Vivian adopts. And in the centre of Lemonfish is a liquorice allsort, the pink toilet roll (Vivian has a bit of a sweet tooth).

  TQ: In Eggshells who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?

  Caitriona: I’m going to say Vivian for both, if that doesn’t count as cheating . . Vivian was in some ways easy to write because her personality and her unorthodox way of viewing the world helped to drive the story on. Her strange reactions to normal situations was the driving force of the novel. But she was also difficult to write because of the intensity of inhabiting her mind. She doesn’t have “normal” social interactions with people, she doesn’t do usual things like exercise or meeting friends for a drink or go to work, and so without such common social interactions, she was a very intense character to write.

  TQ: Why have you chosen to include or not chosen to include social issues in Eggshells?

  Caitriona: I didn’t deal directly with social issues because I hate being preached to in fiction, but I think the theme of not belonging, loneliness, how society treats misfits has crept into the novel through how Vivian is viewed by other people. I suppose being unemployed, I was feeling left out of a society that seemed to value work and money above all else, and Vivian embodies this lack of conforming too. It was something that was on my mind and I haven’t made any major points or come to any conclusions, but not belonging is a theme that runs through Eggshells.

  TQ: Which question about Eggshells do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

  Caitriona: Why isn’t there a description of Vivian’s appearance in the book?

  I deliberately avoided describing Vivian’s physical appearance because I got fed up of reading about beautiful women’s reflections in mirrors, or as described by others. I wanted readers to imagine for themselves what she looks like. Vivian has covered all the mirrors in the house, and the books is seen through her eyes, so there isn’t an opportunity for a description of her to creep in.

  TQ: Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery quotes from Eggshells.

  Caitriona:

  “I wake on a damp pillow; my dreams must have leaked.”

  “I don’t know how a pouch of sweets differs from a bag, but I suspect there are kangaroos involved.”

  TQ: What's next?

  Caitriona: I’ve a very rough first draft of my second novel just about finished and am trying to edit that now and put some kind of structure on it. It will take another few months before it can be shown to anybody. This one is set in Germany and I have two narrators which is a nice change after the intensity of living in Vivian’s head.

  TQ: Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

  Caitriona: Thank you for having me, nice questions! Slán agus beannacht.

  Eggshells
  Melville House, March 14, 2017
  Trade Paperback and eBook, 288 pages

  Vivian doesn’t feel like she fits in — and never has. As a child, she was so whimsical that her parents told her she was “left by fairies.” Now, living alone in Dublin, the neighbors treat her like she’s crazy, her older sister condescends to her, social workers seem to have registered her as troubled, and she hasn’t a friend in the world.

  So, she decides it’s time to change her life: She begins by advertising for a friend. Not just any friend. She wants one named Penelope.

  Meanwhile, she roams the city, mapping out a new neighborhood every day, seeking her escape route to a better world, the other world her parents told her she came from.

  And then one day someone named Penelope answers her ad for a friend. And from that moment on, Vivian’s life begins to change.

  Debut author Caitriona Lally offers readers an exhilaratingly fresh take on the Irish love for lyricism, humor, and inventive wordplay in a book that is, in itself, deeply charming, and deeply moving.

• Writing - https://www.writing.ie/interviews/literary-fiction/caitriona-lally-on-eggshells/

  Caitriona Lally on Eggshells
  w-ie-small
  Article by writingie © 18 May 2015 .
  Posted in the Magazine ( · Literary Fiction ).

  I began 2014 with an almost-completed first novel, Eggshells, pieced together from jottings on scraps of paper that made their way into different-sized notebooks and eventually into a book. The previous October, I had entered the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair competition. I was now jobless, and as a distraction, I worked on another draft of Eggshells. It wasn’t hard to motivate myself to write; job-hunting is frustrating and tedious, even more so when you have no idea what you want to do or where you want to do it.

  When Brendan from the Irish Writers Centre called to say I was one of the finalists, I shrieked like a wounded banshee. The decibel levels were so high, I may owe Brendan the price of a hearing test. I hadn’t really allowed myself to think about winning the competition; I hadn’t so much as a paragraph published in my name. As far as I was concerned, publication was for Other People, people who emerged from the womb holding pens. The only snag to my excitement was: it was Friday, and I needed to mail a completed novel to the Irish Writers’ Centre on Monday.

  catriona-lallyInstead of writing, I told friends and family my news and spent the next while on the phone receiving congratulations for a novel that I should be finishing. Instead of writing, I went to the pub that evening to celebrate with friends and cider and more squeals. The next morning, I woke with a mild hangover and a less mild sense of unease about some unfinished business.

  Fortunately, I had the house to myself that weekend so I stayed in my pyjamas and pruned and tweaked and tore strips off the book at a kitchen table strewn with cruddy bowls and tea-stained cups and scraps of paper. I ate cereal and ordered takeaway and did nothing more domestically arduous than boil a kettle for the next 48 hours. I spoke the words of the novel aloud, I lopped off certain sections, I added in what I thought were braver, better words, but which after rereading seemed like inferior words, and so, to the delete button again. When I’d sent off my virtually finished novel to the Irish Writers Centre, I felt all sorts of relief and pride until I realised that I had a pitch and bio to write, as well as some serious swotting up on the publishers to do.

  The pitch unnerved me. I’m terrible at buzzwords, at selling myself, at putting a year’s work into a couple of killer sentences. Eggshells is a strange kind of a book, and I found it difficult to describe. All I could hope for was that the agents and publishers would look beyond the awkward, hesitant woman and into the manuscript she clutched. But if I thought writing a pitch was hard, writing a biography was sheer hell. I was tempted to invent a couple of literary prizes I’d won or been shortlisted for, but I’m the person who gets caught out for even thinking about lying, so I just wrote a list of jobs I had worked and my favourite flavour of crisps.

  The Novel Fair is a chance for 12 aspiring writers to spend 15 minutes pitching their books to various agents and publishers. I’ve heard it described as speed-dating for nerds, but instead of aiming to get laid, we were aiming to get published. The fair was fun, it was intense, it was exciting. Better than a job interview because if you write, you read, and at the fair, you get to talk about both to people who love books. In job interviews, you squeeze yourself into corporate shapes; here, you could be real. Real also meant nervous though; there was much sweating and running to the toilets to towel off the oxters and mop my clammy forehead.

  Shortly after the fair, I went to stay with a friend in Hamburg. I visited a museum which got so far under my skin, I’ve since decided to set my second novel there. At the time, I had the makings of two characters in my head, but I was in no form for writing. The obsession with the museum fizzed around my brain until I placed my characters firmly in this German world and began writing the second novel. Eggshells is about a woman who believes she’s a changeling walking around contemporary Dublin trying to find a portal back to the otherworld. I loved obsessively studying the city for that novel, but I felt I’d written Dublin to death. Writing about a different place would be a relief.

  After the fair, Ger Nichol of the Book Bureau contacted me and agreed to represent me, and towards the end of the year, I signed a book deal with Liberties Press. Ger and Liberties really got the book, they got the character, and being got was what I was after. With much of last year spent finishing and trying to find a home for Eggshells, I’m glad it won’t end up on the compost heap just yet. It launches this week, which means 2015 will be spent promoting the first book, writing the second, and finding paid work to keep me in pencils and printer ink.

  (c) Caitriona Lally

  “A fairytale of Dublin. Edgy and eloquent, a remarkable debut.” Declan Kiberd.

  About the Book:

  Vivian Lawlor believes she is a changeling. She was left by fairies on Earth, replacing her parents’ healthy human child. Now, as an adult, she’s trying to get back to the ‘otherworld’, where she feels she can finally belong. The thing is, Vivian is having some difficulties going back, so she’s forced to go about her Earth life in the meantime.

  Vivian’s everyday routine, meticulously mapped out on parchment paper, takes her all over Dublin in her effort to get ‘home’. She encounters nosy neighbours, pernickety social workers and her condescending older sister – who is also named Vivian. From making lists in her journal to posting ‘wanted’ advertisements for a friend named Penelope, Vivian leads an eccentric life.

  Caitriona Lally offers a witty, exhilarating debut novel in Eggshells. Vivian’s head is filled to the brim with clever one-liners that leave the people she encounters more than a little confused. Her OCD-like tendencies make her human relationships strained, but she still has the house her Great Aunt Maude left her – as long as she doesn’t hurt its feelings.

• Le Cool - http://dublin.lecool.com/inspirations/caitriona-lally/

  INTERVIEW
  Caitriona Lally
  Caitriona Lally

  By eoinmoore
  What is Eggshells about?
  That’s the hardest question I get asked! “Eggshells” is quite a strange book so it’s difficult to describe it in a couple of sentences, but basically it tells the story of Vivian, a quite eccentric woman who feels like she doesn’t belong and believes she’s a changeling. She walks around Dublin trying to find a portal back to the otherworld, and gets herself into all sorts of scrapes with ordinary Dubliners when she tries to impose her version of reality on them. Vivian also traces the routes of her wanderings onto pieces of paper in an attempt to find a pattern.

  What writing experience did you have before Eggshells? Had you ever been published before?
  I had worked for several years as an abstract writer for a U.S. company, reading magazine articles and writing summaries of them, so I was used to producing words on demand but I had no experience of writing creatively for publication. In 2010, I did a creative writing course, which really kickstarted any creative writing notions I had. We worked on short stories and personal essays in class, and the class has still kept in touch, mostly to go out drinking, but I was able to show them an early draft of “Eggshells” and ask for their feedback. I trust them hugely and am lucky to have that kind of honest feedback; it’s sometimes painful and hard to take, but mostly worth it in the end. Kind of like surgery I suppose.
  After the course finished, I found myself unemployed, and I entered some short stories and essays into journals and competitions, but they were all rejected. So that’s the answer: no, I had never been published before “Eggshells”. I decided to write a novel seeing as I wasn’t having any luck with shorter pieces – and to delay what I presumed would be the inevitable rejection.

  Eggshells combines a realistic portrayal of modern day Dublin with elements of the fantastic. Why did you choose to make reference to changelings and fairy worlds?
  I think that just came naturally from the character, Vivian. She doesn’t really fit in with her surroundings and sees things in a totally different way – I suppose she imprints her more magical version of things onto actual things that have no magic, like when she sees a small door in a shop leading to the stockroom and assumes it’s a portal to another world, or goes looking for a holy well and ends up finding a public toilet.
  I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of changelings – as society’s way of explaining people who are perceived as behaving strangely or who don’t fit into the family. And that idea of not belonging was heightened by Vivian’s assumption that there was somewhere she could belong.

  Reviewers have compared your writing to Joyce for its experimentation with language and its exploration of Dublin. Would you agree? Are you a fan of Joyce?
  That is a hugely flattering, but probably not realistic comparison. I mean, I think the sense of wandering around Dublin is similar, but Joyce is on a more complex level entirely. I had read “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” and “Dubliners”, but I read “Ulysses” for the first time this year, during another bout of unemployment (which is probably the best time to tackle “Ulysses”). I’d been too daunted to go near “Ulysses” for years, but when I read it, I absolutely loved it, even though I’m not sure I totally understood it and I probably missed a lot of the references. I was very glad that I hadn’t read it when I was writing “Eggshells”, or I think I would have been way too intimidated to have my character wander the same streets as Leopold Bloom – it would have felt like too great a standard to live up to.

  What are you going to do next?
  I’m working on the second novel, in theory anyway. I’ve a good chunk of the first draft done so I want to get properly stuck into it again and hopefully finish the first draft by the end of the summer. Then it will be constant tweaks and retweaks until I’m satisfied with it.

  What are you reading at the moment?
  I’m a fiend for starting lots of books at the same time. On the floor beside the bed there’s Henry Miller’s “The Books in My Life”, George Konrád’s “The City Builder”, Greg Baxter’s “Munich Airport”, Rebecca Solnit’s “Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness”, and Peter Turchi’s “Maps of the Imagination”, because I’m completely obsessed with maps. I’m rereading Mary Costello’s “The China Factory” because I loved the stories so much the first time, and I’m nearly finished “Gulliver”, a children’s version of Gulliver’s Travels by Martin Jenkins and illustrated by Chris Riddell.
  I have fantasies of somehow growing another few hours every day so I can read all the books I want to.

• Liberties Press - http://www.libertiespress.com/blog/2015/6/19/q-a-with-caitriona-lally

  Caitriona-LC.jpg
  CAITRIONA LALLY ON 'EGGSHELLS'

  July 16, 2015
  We chatted to the lovely Caitriona Lally about Eggshells, her debut novel that critics have described as 'dazzling', 'funny' and 'touching'.

  Vivian is an extraordinary character. Where did the inspiration for her come from? Was she inspired by any aspects of your own personality?

  Vivian is a bit bonkers, so I'd like to say she's completely different to me, but there are definite similarities. When I wrote her, I was imagining how any of us would speak and act if we didn't filter our thoughts, so I suppose there are aspects of me in there. But as I wrote, she took on a life of her own, she became very real to me and I found myself thinking 'What would Vivian do here, how would Vivian interpret this?' I'm drawn to people who don't follow the unspoken rules of society - people who see the world differently or act outside of convention, so there are definitely some characteristics of people I know in Vivian. I do share some habits with Vivian; making lists of nice words for example, and her obsession with maps. Fortunately, I don't share her hoarding tendencies, or her lack of personal hygiene.

  Vivian doesn't like to look at herself in mirrors, going to far as to refuse looking at her own reflection while visiting the hair salon. What does this mean, if anything - is it an indication of her disengagement with reality?

  I hadn't thought of it that way, but there may be some truth to that - it's really interesting to hear other people's interpretations of aspects of the book that I hadn't consciously thought about. Vivian says near the start of the book that when her great-aunt died, the mirrors were all covered with sheets, and when she inherited the house, she didn't uncover them. Initially, I wanted there to be no mirrors for the simple reason that I didn't want to give a physical description of her. I get fed up of reading about attractive female characters doing their make-up in front of mirrors, and I wanted to write a character that had no interest in her physical appearance. I wanted readers to make up their own minds about what she looked like, if they thought about it at all. Then as the story develops, Vivian actively avoids looking at her reflection - maybe it's a fear of what she will find there, or maybe it's linked with her refusal to fit in with society's expectations of how we should act. She doesn't shower for instance, and she takes great pleasure in sniffing and describing the unwashed sweat from her body.

  People react to Vivian in varying ways: the tutting, gossipy, curious neighbours, the bemusement, irritation, disbelief and occasional kindness from strangers. The taxi driver looks at her like she's an 'interesting disease'. All of these reactions are very 'real' while reading them you can vividly imagine the sighs and the stares, yet these reactions don't seem to pierce her emotions too much. Did you find it difficult to write about a character that is so misunderstood by the people in her surrounding environment?

  It was a huge amount of fun to create a character coated with Teflon - none of those horribly judgmental attitudes really affects her. I liked the idea of someone who could observe and describe the negative reactions to her, but just not be greatly wounded by them - there's an innate confidence to Vivian that assures her she's just fine. If she suffers a disappointment, she never really takes it to heart. It doesn't occur to her to blame her own behaviour for failed interactions with others, and I liked that lack of self-criticism, and maybe envied it a bit - wouldn't it be great to muddle through life, wreaking havoc and just not care how people reacted to you.

  Vivian is definitely on the fringes of society, and when I meet someone like her, on the bus or in a charity shop, I feel quite protective of them, especially when you see some people's reactions to their unexpected conversations or behaviour. So, I suppose that was difficult; writing about negative reactions to Vivian, when I felt she was seeing the world in a more real way than some of the more "normal" people.

  Declan Kiberd called Eggshells 'a fairytale of Dublin', with The Irish Times citing it as 'a dazzling trip around Dublin'. When Vivian maps out her daily routes in Dublin onto paper, were these based in your own drawings and observations?

  Yes. I had been made redundant from my job in 2011 and spent a lot of time wandering the streets of Dublin, making notes of interesting street signs or graffiti and overheard conversations. The character of Vivian came out of those wanderings; I had notebooks full of observations to work from. And then when I walked Vivian's routes around the city, I came home and plotted the routes on a map and made rough sketches of the route. I threw them away though - I never thought the book would get published!

  Where do you write?

  Anywhere. I love reading interviews with writers who have a really strict routine of where they write and when they write and how they write, but I don't have a fixed routine. Maybe because I seem to drift from unemployment to short-term contracts and back to unemployment again - so my writing habits change with my circumstances. I have a beautiful wooden writing desk, but it mostly sits empty while I write from bed. If I need to escape the house, I write in the National Library on Kildare Street. Sometimes you see really talented, well-known writers working in there and I'm there trying to peer over their shoulders and steal some of their magic.

  Who are your favourite authors to read?

  Ooooh I can't narrow this down so bear with me! For short stories, I love Mary Costello, Kevin Barry, Claire Keegan, Raymond Carver, Alice Munro, James Salter, Flannery O'Connor, Lydia Davis, Lorrie Moore. Then there's Henry Miller, Anne Enright, Anakana Schofield, Charles Bukowski, Rachel Cusk, W.G. Sebald, Rebecca Solnit, Joan Didion, William Faulkner, Kjersti Skomsvold. And Alison Bechdel's graphic novels are just beautifully written and illustrated - what a talent to be able to do both.

  Can you tell us anything about your next novel?

  The next novel is about a brother and sister. It's been refreshing to write about two main characters after living so intensely in Vivian's head for so long. It's set in Hamburg, just by chance - I visited a friend who lives there, after I'd finished writing Eggshells, and I really fell for part of that city. I had only the characters of the brother and sister in my head but no setting - so I was delighted when I found that part of Hamburg. I took lots and lots of notes, and went back to visit a second time. That was surreal, because I'd started writing the book from my notes, I knew those streets intimately as if I'd lived there myself instead of just visiting for a few days.

  If Eggshells was going to be made into a film, who would you chose to play Vivian, her friend Penelope, and her sister (also called Vivian)?

  Tough question! I really don't know about Vivian, because I have no idea what she looks like. I spent so much time in her head looking outward that I never checked her reflection in the mirror. Instead of a famous actress, could we have a camera attached to someone's head, and just film what Vivian sees and never actually see her face?! The sister cares hugely about appearances, so she could be played by someone who does snobby and snide well - maybe Bree from Desperate Housewives (Marcia Cross). Penelope is just daft, I could see Helena Bonham Carter (pictured below) playing her.
  Helena Bonham Carter
  Helena Bonham Carter

  You can order Eggshells from us here or if you'd prefer a signed copy, head to Hodges Figgis bookshop on Dawson St or Eason's on O'Connell St.

  Happy reading!

• The Qwillery - https://qwillery.blogspot.com/2017/03/interview-with-caitriona-lally-author.html?m=1

  The Qwillery
  A blog about books and other things speculative
  ▼
  Thursday, March 16, 2017
  Interview with Caitriona Lally, author of Eggshells

  Please welcome Caitriona Lally to The Qwillery as part of the 2017 Debut Author Challenge Interviews. Eggshells was published on March 14th by Melville House.

  TQ: Welcome to The Qwillery. When and why did you start writing?

  Caitriona: Like most writers, I spent a lot of my childhood reading and making up extremely derivative stories in copybooks, based very closely on what I had just written. The words “THE END” written in bubble writing would make up a large proportion of the story. Then I fell out of the habit as I grew into the teenage years, and it wasn’t until my early 30s that I did an evening class in creative writing, which got me back into inventing stuff. I realised I found the short story form difficult so I decide to try my hand at writing a novel. And that’s when Eggshells came about.

  TQ: Are you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid?

  Caitriona: I’m a pantser. Not by choice, I just struggle with plotting. Any time I’ve tried to plan which way the story will go, the character seems to take on a life of its own as I get further into the story, and pushes the plot in a different direction. Eggshells is more character-driven than plot-driven, so I just followed the character’s adventures and wanderings around Dublin.

  TQ: What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?

  Caitriona: Probably finding the time to write, or more accurately, forcing myself to make the time to write. Eggshells was my first novel and I squeezed in the writing of it around a full-time job. Now I’m working early mornings and I find that doing interviews and other writing work with tighter deadlines tend to take precedence over the main work of writing my second novel. When you’re tired, you tend to prioritise work with immediate deadlines, so motivation to put the novel-writing first is my biggest challenge.

  TQ: What has influenced / influences your writing?

  Caitriona: My childhood and adult reading. My interest in fairytales and mythology comes through in my book. And my obsession with maps – walking and mapping my character’s routes around Dublin came from my love of maps. I struggle to understand maps in a practical way, but I love looking at them as imaginative works.

  TQ: Describe Eggshells in 140 characters or less.

  Caitriona: Misfit Vivian, who believes she’s a changeling, walks Dublin’s streets looking for a portal to another world where she thinks she’ll belong

  TQ: Tell us something about Eggshells that is not found in the book description.

  Caitriona: I had never had anything published before I wrote Eggshells, so it felt like a leap in the dark. I had tried – and failed – to get short stories, essays, articles published, and had nothing but rejection so I decided to write something longer that would feel like an achievement in itself, even if it never got published. So eventually seeing my name on the cover of a book was extremely exciting!

  TQ: What inspired you to write Eggshells? What appealed to you about writing a genre bending novel?

  Caitriona: I didn’t set out to write a genre-bending novel; in fact I didn’t realise that Eggshells could be called that until I read your question! I didn’t think about genres when I started writing, I just followed the voice of Vivian and concocted adventures and walks and plans for her as I went along. I had been made redundant from my job during the recession in Ireland, and spent a year job-hunting and walking aimlessly around the city – and Vivian came from this time, this sense of not belonging, of seeking something that was difficult to find: in my case a job, in her case a portal to another world.

  TQ: What sort of research did you do for Eggshells?

  Caitriona: Vivian walks pre-planned routes around Dublin to magical-sounding places in an attempt to find a portal to the otherworld. I scoured atlas indexes and maps of the city to source fairytale-like places. Then I walked all her walks around the city and took notes of buildings and street signs with letters missing (which Vivian believes could form patterns or codes which would lead her to another world). Then when I got home, I plotted the routes of my walks on an old map to see what kind of shape I walked – exactly what Vivian does.

  TQ: Please tell us about Eggshells' cover.

  Caitriona: The background is a map of Dublin, which I’m thrilled with – I love maps and I think it helps to put Vivian’s walks in context, for readers outside of Dublin. In the centre is an image of Lemonfish, a slightly poorly goldfish missing a few scales that Vivian adopts. And in the centre of Lemonfish is a liquorice allsort, the pink toilet roll (Vivian has a bit of a sweet tooth).

  TQ: In Eggshells who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?

  Caitriona: I’m going to say Vivian for both, if that doesn’t count as cheating . . Vivian was in some ways easy to write because her personality and her unorthodox way of viewing the world helped to drive the story on. Her strange reactions to normal situations was the driving force of the novel. But she was also difficult to write because of the intensity of inhabiting her mind. She doesn’t have “normal” social interactions with people, she doesn’t do usual things like exercise or meeting friends for a drink or go to work, and so without such common social interactions, she was a very intense character to write.

  TQ: Why have you chosen to include or not chosen to include social issues in Eggshells?

  Caitriona: I didn’t deal directly with social issues because I hate being preached to in fiction, but I think the theme of not belonging, loneliness, how society treats misfits has crept into the novel through how Vivian is viewed by other people. I suppose being unemployed, I was feeling left out of a society that seemed to value work and money above all else, and Vivian embodies this lack of conforming too. It was something that was on my mind and I haven’t made any major points or come to any conclusions, but not belonging is a theme that runs through Eggshells.

  TQ: Which question about Eggshells do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

  Caitriona: Why isn’t there a description of Vivian’s appearance in the book?

  I deliberately avoided describing Vivian’s physical appearance because I got fed up of reading about beautiful women’s reflections in mirrors, or as described by others. I wanted readers to imagine for themselves what she looks like. Vivian has covered all the mirrors in the house, and the books is seen through her eyes, so there isn’t an opportunity for a description of her to creep in.

  TQ: Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery quotes from Eggshells.

  Caitriona:

  “I wake on a damp pillow; my dreams must have leaked.”

  “I don’t know how a pouch of sweets differs from a bag, but I suspect there are kangaroos involved.”

  TQ: What's next?

  Caitriona: I’ve a very rough first draft of my second novel just about finished and am trying to edit that now and put some kind of structure on it. It will take another few months before it can be shown to anybody. This one is set in Germany and I have two narrators which is a nice change after the intensity of living in Vivian’s head.

  TQ: Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

  Caitriona: Thank you for having me, nice questions! Slán agus beannacht.

• Italish Magazine - http://italish.eu/news/caitriona-lallys-eggshells-interview/

  Caitriona Lally’s ‘Eggshells’: the interview

  by QROB
  11/04/2017 0 COMMENTS A-AA+
  eggshells by caitriona lally
  On the road (of Dublin) again with Caitriona Lally’s Eggshells. Our interview to Caitriona.

  – Would you tell us something about the process of creating ‘Eggshells’, its whys and hows?
  I had been laid off from my job in 2011, during the recession, and I suddenly found myself without a structure to my day. I went from having somewhere to be from 9 to 5 every weekday, with a group of colleagues, to having no deadlines or places to be – except the social welfare office.

  I began wandering around Dublin, aimlessly, outside of rush hour when the streets were quieter, and I started noticing these street signs with letters missing from them, so that the signs spelt out new street names – for example Prussia Street had a ‘P’ missing and it was now Russia Street.

  I made notes of these street signs and wondering about them. Then I started making notes of overheard conversations and interesting graffiti, and lists of beautiful flowers in the Botanic Gardens, and exhibits in different museums. And my main character, Vivian, evolved from that – a character who was an outsider, a misfit, somebody who didn’t belong and was trying to find some kind of pattern or code to lead her to a world where she would belong.

  – Who was born first, the book or the writer? I mean: did you want to write a book, and you went for it, or did you have a story to tell, and that story became ‘Eggshells’ – the book – later?
  Probably more the latter.

  I didn’t set out to write a novel – I had only ever written short stories and essays before, and I had had no success trying to get them published. The street signs with letters missing made me curious, and I thought I might write a nonfiction essay about them, but I realised I was having more fun imagining why these letters are missing and trying to find some kind of meaning behind that. It was the voice of Vivian that drove the story – the sense of desperately seeking something – and it was only when I started writing in her voice that I realised I could turn her walks and adventures into a book.
  From Dublin, the author studied English in Trinity and came to prominence through the Irish Writers Centre’s 2014 Novel Fair initiative. Her debut recalls the work of another Irish debutant, Sara Baume, whose acclaimed novel Spill Simmer Falter Wither was published earlier this year.

  The loner narrators of both books offer unique takes on modern Ireland, a country where many are struggling.
  Sarah Gilmartin, The Irish Times
  – Tell us something more about your (and Vivian’s) fascination for maps and streets.
  Is it that obvious I’m obsessed with maps?!

  Yes, I’ve always loved maps and globes, and our home is full of them. Maybe because I love travelling and am constantly plotting the next country I want to visit, maps hold such potential.

  I love looking at the shapes of the countries, and comparing old maps to new maps and where new lines have been drawn.

  My only problem is that I can’t actually read maps in a practical sense. I’m the person you see on the street turning a streetmap every which way, trying to locate myself on it. And I’m a very irritating passenger in a car – Google maps sends me into a cold sweat of confusion and I am no help in giving directions to the driver.

  – Caitriona and Vivian, Vivian and Caitriona: how much of you is in the character?
  Hmmm. Maybe more than I realised when I was writing the book.

  There was definitely a parallel between my year of unemployment walking the streets looking for a job, and Vivian walking the streets looking for a portal to another world.

  Also, Vivian shares my obsession with maps, as we’ve mentioned, and lists. I love lists of nice words and ideas, and I just took it to extreme with Vivian using her lists as a way to try and make sense of the world. But I’m (thankfully) not as socially isolated as Vivian.

  That was one of the most difficult parts to write – the intensity of a character who rarely connects with other people.

  – Almost a century since ‘Ulysses’, Dublin is still the “perfect” landscape for novels. It’s me or this dear dirty city still has a lot to tell, to writers’ ears at least?
  Well, I grew up in Dublin and live here still, so maybe I’m too close to it to answer this properly.

  Dublin is a very walkable city, a compact city, so it suited my (and Vivian’s) purposes perfectly. If I had set the book in London or New York or any bigger city, Vivian would have had to use public transport a lot more and that would have changed the shape of the book – and I might not have had her plot her routes on a map.

  When I was in Pisa and Florence in November, I found all the beautiful architecture almost overwhelming – maybe when there is so much beauty, it would be difficult to know where to begin writing about it.

  – Vivian is quite a nerd character. In what is far from you, in her definitely-not-Caitriona nuances and “madness”, where did you take inspiration from?
  Hah! Maybe it’s wishful thinking that her nuances and eccentricities are far from me.

  Some of the things she says are things that I might think – even though I know better than to say them aloud. Vivian doesn’t obey the usual social conventions, and that was very refreshing to write.

  Also, I walk around Dublin a lot, and I take buses a lot, so I’ve had plenty of experiences of random conversations with eccentric people, so maybe Vivian partly was inspired by that. I like the way people who seem the most eccentric sometimes speak the truth more than the rest of us, who are concerned with what people think of them.

  – What is your next writing project?
  I’m currently working on my second novel, it’s going a lot more slowly than I intended, but life got in the way. This novel is set in Hamburg – a different city because I wanted to get to set my book in a different location to Dublin.

  I’ve visited a friend there a few times and loved the port feel to the city, but it’s a different type of writing because the characters are engaging with Hamburg as tourists and strangers rather than inhabitants.

  – What Irish books would you suggest to our Italian readers?
  For another quirky book set in Dublin, Daniel Seery’s A Model Partner is funny and endearing. I’m a huge fan of Irish short stories, especially because I have such difficulty with the form myself – collections by Kevin Barry, Mary Costello, Colin Barrett, Danielle McLaughlin. Patrick McCabe’s The Butcher Boy is dark and funny. Anakana Schofield’s Malarkey is very funny and offbeat. And Samuel Beckett for his misanthropic, stinky characters.

Lally, Caitriona. Eggshells
John G. Matthews
Library Journal.
142.1 (Jan. 1, 2017): p89.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text: 
* Lally, Caitriona. Eggshells. Melville House. Feb. 2017.272p. ISBN 9781612195971. pap. $16.99; ebk. ISBN
9781612195988. F
Currently unemployed, Vivian lives in the Dublin house a deceased aunt bequeathed to her and spends her days
searching the city for portals to enchanted realms. She may in fact be a changeling, and discovering a way back home
is one of her priorities. She also acquires a goldfish, advertises for a friend named Penelope, visits a sister also named
Vivian, and makes lists of names, words, and things she hopes will reveal patterns or spells that will help her return to
the place she believes she belongs. Vivian carefully maps her journeys throughout the city, noticing the likenesses
between the routes she traces and things in the world. While apparently stuck in the human realm, she offers
perceptions of the city and its people who are magical, though they may be rooted in trauma she cannot fully elude.
Even so, Vivian never abandons her quest. VERDICT Lally's sensational first novel is a love letter to Dublin as well as
the incantatory and transformative powers of language. Indeed, Vivian's voice is the real enchantment of this warm,
witty debut--John G. Matthews, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman
Matthews, John G.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Matthews, John G. "Lally, Caitriona. Eggshells." Library Journal, 1 Jan. 2017, p. 89+. General OneFile,
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Lally, Caitriona: EGGSHELLS
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(Dec. 1, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text: 
Lally, Caitriona EGGSHELLS Melville House (Adult Fiction) $25.95 2, 21 ISBN: 978-1-61219-597-1
Dubliner Vivian Lawlor doesn't fit in anywhere. Will she ever find her place in this world?Debut novelist Lally creates
a portrait of loneliness through the whimsical and obsessive Viv, who meticulously and painstakingly plots her daily
walks through the streets of Dublin. The Irishwoman lives in the cluttered home she inherited from her deceased greataunt,
with whom she had lived since her parents' deaths. Auntie was a Grey Gardens-style hoarder with an impressive
collection of oddball items. Quirkiness runs in the Lawlor family, and before their deaths, Viv's parents managed to
convince this daughter (they have another, also named Vivian) that she's a changeling from another world. Viv is now a
woman searching for portals to the world where she belongs and desperately seeking a friend. Her interactions with the
people she crosses paths with in her daily life--shopkeepers, taxi drivers, urban pedestrians--are so, so awkward, they
are at once delightfully hilarious and painfully cringeworthy. But they will never lead to friendship, and so Viv posts a
sign advertising for a pal. Not just any friend. This charmingly touched heroine is on the hunt for a friend named
Penelope (no Pennies need apply). Viv, who insists on the abbreviated version of her name because she loves
palindromes, wants to ask this new friend why Penelope does not rhyme with antelope. When Viv meets her Penelope,
she's met her match. Though not a grounding influence, Penelope's friendship forces Viv to see her world from a new
perspective. Absent the dramatic character arcs or plot twists readers would expect from an American novel, this urban
fairy tale delivers something that is both subtle and profound in its examination of the human soul. Magically
delicious.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Lally, Caitriona: EGGSHELLS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA471902051&it=r&asid=6a61f92a62d03dcb126f2e70be45b8d0.
Accessed 5 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A471902051

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8/5/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1501965815901 3/4
Eggshells
Emily Brock
Booklist.
113.9-10 (Jan. 1, 2017): p34.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text: 
Eggshells. By Caitriona Lally. Feb. 2017.272p. Melville, $25 (9781612195971).
Lally's first novel is a whimsical jaunt through Dublin and a modern take on many old Irish folktales. When she was a
child, Vivian's parents believed her to be a changeling and tried to get the fairies to return their own healthy child in her
place. As an adult, Vivian still believes she is a fairy and belongs in another world. She spends her days roaming
Dublin in search of "the thin places" where she can find the portal to the fairy underworld. Along the way, Vivian
advertises for a friend named Penelope (so she can ask why her name doesn't rhyme with "antelope") and struggles
with finding the right words in every situation. In this lovingly penned journey full of funny witticisms and creative
thoughts, readers are invited into the mind of someone who possesses a highly unusual sensibility. What the novel
lacks in plot (nothing much actually happens) is made up for by Lally's humorous, charming, and original writing and
narration.--Emily Brock
YA: Teens who have ever felt lonely or different from their peers might identify with the wonderfully unique Vivian.
EB.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Brock, Emily. "Eggshells." Booklist, 1 Jan. 2017, p. 34. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479077941&it=r&asid=152ccf0c2fd75e4e46939e8e00e138df.
Accessed 5 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A479077941

---

8/5/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1501965815901 4/4
Eggshells
Publishers Weekly.
263.48 (Nov. 28, 2016): p40.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text: 
Eggshells
Caitriona Lally. Melville House, $25.99 (272p) ISBN 978-1-61219-597-1
In this whimsical debut novel, Lally chronicles the wanderings of Vivian, a lonely woman who believes herself to be a
fairy whose days are spent searching Dublin for the "thin places" that might return her home, "portals to another
world." In between these outings she visits with her friend Penelope, whom she meets after posting an advertisement
for someone of that name in hopes of figuring out "why she doesn't rhyme with antelope," and her straightlaced sister,
who, as Vivian observes, "copes better with her own words than with mine." Words, in fact, are Vivian's primary
concern. She makes lists of eccentric names to write in her "notebook of certainties" and muses about having the letter
K abolished ("a good 'C' or a double 'CC' would do nicely"). As Vivian's inquiries about a door to Oz or Hades are met
by strangers who blink in response like they have "just come out of the cinema into the sunlight," Lally's charmingly
droll prose takes on a desperate edge. Having suffered a parade of predictable disappointments, Vivian is no closer to
fitting in than she began, and her greatest fantasy is as commonplace as eliciting a laugh over drinks with friends.
"They're bent double and drink is pouring out their noses," she imagines, "but that is just the start of my jokes, there are
more." (Feb.)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Eggshells." Publishers Weekly, 28 Nov. 2016, p. 40. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA473149872&it=r&asid=0bf85dfd01acf2bd71f6389976d55126.
Accessed 5 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A473149872

Matthews, John G. "Lally, Caitriona. Eggshells." Library Journal, 1 Jan. 2017, p. 89+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA476562318&it=r. Accessed 5 Aug. 2017. "Lally, Caitriona: EGGSHELLS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA471902051&it=r. Accessed 5 Aug. 2017. Brock, Emily. "Eggshells." Booklist, 1 Jan. 2017, p. 34. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479077941&it=r. Accessed 5 Aug. 2017. "Eggshells." Publishers Weekly, 28 Nov. 2016, p. 40. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA473149872&it=r. Accessed 5 Aug. 2017.

• The Guardian
  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/12/eggshells-caitriona-lally-review-novel-debut
  Word count: 807

  Eggshells by Caitriona Lally review – a daring debut
  An eccentric outsider roams around Dublin in an inventive and moving debut
  View of half penny bridge, Dublin, Republic of Ireland
  Corners of Dublin ‘speak of magic’ in Eggshells. Photograph: Gu/Corbis
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  Claire Kilroy
  Saturday 12 September 2015 02.30 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 2 May 2017 14.32 EDT
  This unusual debut engages the reader in a challenging dynamic, or a “changeling” dynamic, as Caitriona Lally might have it: the novel is filled with wordplay. Its protagonist, Vivian, believing herself to be a changeling, types “Changeling” into the search box of a job website and “a vacancy for ‘Graphic Design Print Manager’ comes up. It’s suitable for someone who wants ‘Changeling Roles’ ... it must be a different kind of changeling they are looking for.”

  The story is prefaced by WB Yeats’s definition of a changeling: “Sometimes the fairies fancy mortals, and carry them away into their own country, leaving instead some sickly fairy child ... ” Vivian’s parents told her she was one such changeling. “They tried to exchange me for their rightful daughter, but they must not have gone to the right places or asked the right questions.” Vivian, now an adult, is determined to succeed where her parents failed, and Eggshells tracks her peregrinations around Dublin (pictured) as she seeks a “portal to another world, a world my parents believed I came from and tried to send me back to, a world they never found but I will”.

  Vivian’s efforts to locate a portal reveal an alternative map of Dublin, one that charts the “thin” places, the places that “speak of magic”, whether due to their unusual names or characteristics (doors and arches radiate potential), or perhaps merely because they are where the rainbow appears to end.

  Vivian may not be a changeling, but she is definitely a challenge. She is too old to get away with her antics being considered winsome – when she is up a tree in search of the otherworld (inspired by Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree), her neighbour remarks, “Ah Vivian, would you look at yourself, a grown woman up a tree on a day like today.” Having avoided mirrors for years, she is shocked to discover that her hair is grey. She regularly savours her “meaty” smell. “Maybe you should think about showering once in a while,” her sister tells her. Vivian does not act on the advice.

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  Instead, she finds a friend. She tapes a sign to a tree reading: “WANTED: Friend called Penelope. Must Enjoy Talking Because I Don’t Have Much To Say.” Sure enough, a woman – also smelly – answers the ad, and the pair strike up an acquaintance that, although peculiar, is a friendship nonetheless.

  Lally thrusts the reader into a guessing game. We are not Vivian: we are the people who encounter her on her bizarre outings. We are the passengers who won’t sit beside her on the bus. Vivian does not question her behaviour, but we do. Is this woman merely ditsy, or is she mentally ill? If she is mentally ill, what is the nature of her condition? Is she autistic? Does she suffer from OCD? As soon as we have labelled her condition, Vivian’s insight confutes it. Perhaps she is simply indulged? Her inheritance of her great-aunt’s house has released her from the need to work. But might Vivian be better off if she were forced to be a productive member of society? What is a productive member of society? And so on. It is a clever technique on Lally’s part. Vivian remains constant in her eccentricity; it is the reader who must re-evaluate their position on every page. Any book that makes you think this much is a good one.

  It is true that some promising plot strands are not followed up. Why, for instance, are both sisters called Vivian? Who is blueing out letters on the street signs of Dublin, and to what end? The reader would like to see Vivian and this mystery character meet, but they don’t.

  In Vivian’s poignant mission to “find my way home”, she is reminiscent of a WG Sebald character – a lost soul sentenced to wander the streets in search of a home that no longer exists. In Vivian’s case, home never did exist – yet she persists. Always thwarted, and yet somehow never crushed, she whispers “safe safe safe” to herself and gets on with her quest. To sustain such an odd voice is a difficult task. Lally pulls it off by being inventive, funny and, ultimately, rather moving.

• Watermark Books and Cafe
  http://www.watermarkbooks.com/eggshells-caitriona-lally-review-shirley-wells
  Word count: 436

  Eggshells by Caitriona Lally, review by Shirley Wells
  Fans of Eileen by Otessa Moshfegh or even Sara Baume's Spill Simmer Falter Wither will find much to like in Eggshells by Caitriona Lally. It features a quirky, socially-awkward protagonist whose interactions with the world around her prove both humorous and heartbreaking.

  There's a clever ambiguity about the narrator Vivian; it's hard to get a grasp on her mental state since she really doesn't fit in anywhere. Is she eccentric, autistic, OCD, severely disturbed? She can, at times, appear to be all four. Perhaps Vivian's oddest trait is that she believes she is a changeling. As the Irish poet W. B. Yeats defined it, "Sometimes the fairies fancy mortals, and carry them away into their own country, leaving instead some sickly fairy child... " Vivian's parents told her she was left by the fairies, and she takes their fanciful assessment of her unusual personality literally: "They tried to exchange me for their rightful daughter, but they must not have gone to the right places or asked the right questions." Where her parents failed, Vivian is determined to succeed. Thus, her daily wanderings around Dublin in search of a portal to a fairy land provide readers with a fascinating, albeit a bit bizarre, tour around the capital city. Although this may remind you of another Irish author's tour of Dublin, especially in regard to the author's concern with language and form over plot, this is not just a reworking of or homage to Ulysses.

  In spite of her whimsical search, Vivian appears to be stuck in a dreary existence. She lives alone in a dilapidated house that her great-aunt left to her. She has no friends, no job, and few social skills. But then she advertises for a friend named Penelope by pinning a notice to a tree (isn't that how all friendships begin?!), and someone named Elaine actually answers her ad. This friendship causes Vivian's world to change—yes, the changeling herself begins to change. But can she stop searching for a portal to another world if she finds a connection to someone in this world?

  Despite her unusual quirks and her odd quest, Vivian is a sympathetic character, and her love—and obsessive recording—of words will especially endear her to many like-minded logophiles. Lally's debut novel reads like an urban fairy tale filled with inventive wordplay and a hunt for meaning through language. It also provides us with a subtle lesson in empathy for the lost and lonely who, like Vivian, are seeking their place in the world.

• Books and Bindings
  http://booksandbindings.com/book-review-eggshells-by-caitriona-lally/
  Word count: 455

  Book Review: Eggshells by Caitriona Lally 4
  23 Mar 2017 | Book Reviews
  Eggshells
  by Caitriona Lally

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  Paperback: 256 pages

  Publisher: Melville House (March 14, 2017)

  — Irish Book of the Year Finalist!

  A whimsical, touching debut about loneliness, friendship, and hope…

  Vivian doesn’t feel like she fits in — and never has. As a child, she was so whimsical that her parents told her she was “left by fairies.” Now, living alone in Dublin, the neighbors treat her like she’s crazy, her older sister condescends to her, social workers seem to have registered her as troubled, and she hasn’t a friend in the world.

  So, she decides it’s time to change her life: She begins by advertising for a friend. Not just any friend. She wants one named Penelope.

  Meanwhile, she roams the city, mapping out a new neighborhood every day, seeking her escape route to a better world, the other world her parents told her she came from.

  And then one day someone named Penelope answers her ad for a friend. And from that moment on, Vivian’s life begins to change.

  Debut author Caitriona Lally offers readers an exhilaratingly fresh take on the Irish love for lyricism, humor, and inventive wordplay in a book that is, in itself, deeply charming, and deeply moving.

  “This urban fairy tale delivers something that is both subtle and profound in its examination of the human soul. Magically delicious.”—Kirkus

  “A whimsical jaunt through Dublin and a modern take on many old Irish folktales…Humorous, charming, and original.”—Booklist

  “Inventive, funny and, ultimately, moving.” — Claire Kilroy, The Guardian

  “Full of action and humor as its beguiling narrator takes her surreal jaunts around the capital in search of a portal to another world…. The black comedy gives the book a jaunty quality that complements the dazzling trip around Dublin.” — Sarah Gilmartin, The Irish Times

  “Delightfully quirky… Vivian’s voice alone is enough to keep us reading, charmed by her unique brand of manic, word-hoarding wit.” — The Irish Independent

  “The book’s style calls to mind The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Engaging and humorous.” — The Dublin Inquirer

  “This is a strange, lyrical, fantastical, and slightly disturbing book that left me feeling a bit dizzy each time I would read a few chapters… a fresh take on wordplay and humor… Vivian is a sympathetic, and utterly unforgettable, character.” — Jennifer Ohzourk, St. Louis Public Library

  My Rating:

• Broken Teepee
  https://brokenteepee.com/eggshells-caitriona-lally-book-review/
  Word count: 748

  EGGSHELLS BY CAITRIONA LALLY – BOOK REVIEW AND BLOG TOUR WITH A GIVEAWAY

  April 2, 2017 by Patty

  I received a free copy of Eggshells from TLC Book Tours for my honest review.

  Eggshells by Caitriona Lally

  ABOUT THE BOOK:

  Paperback: 256 pages

  Publisher: Melville House (March 14, 2017)

  — Irish Book of the Year Finalist!

  A whimsical, touching debut about loneliness, friendship and hope…

  Vivian doesn’t feel like she fits in — and never has. As a child, she was so whimsical that her parents told her she was “left by fairies.” Now, living alone in Dublin, the neighbors treat her like she’s crazy, her older sister condescends to her, social workers seem to have registered her as troubled, and she hasn’t a friend in the world.

  So, she decides it’s time to change her life: She begins by advertising for a friend. Not just any friend. She wants one named Penelope.

  Meanwhile, she roams the city, mapping out a new neighborhood every day, seeking her escape route to a better world, the other world her parents told her she came from.

  And then one day someone named Penelope answers her ad for a friend. And from that moment on, Vivian’s life begins to change.

  Debut author Caitriona Lally offers readers an exhilaratingly fresh take on the Irish love for lyricism, humor, and inventive wordplay in a book that is, in itself, deeply charming, and deeply moving.

  Any purchase links are affiliate links which means if you buy anything through them I will receive a small commission that helps to keep the Farm cats in toys and treats.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

  CAITRIONA LALLY studied English Literature in Trinity College Dublin. She has had a colorful employment history, working as an abstract writer and a copywriter, as well as a home helper in New York and an English teacher in Japan. She has traveled extensively around Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and South America. Caitriona was shortlisted for “Newcomer of the Year” in the Irish Book Awards in 2015.

  Connect with Caitriona on Twitter.

  MY OPINON:

  This is a truly unique book. It is really like nothing I have ever read before. I am still not sure whether I liked it or hated it. It confused me, entranced me, angered me, almost brought me to tears and literally made me gasp at one point. It makes no sense. I almost stopped reading it but I couldn’t put it down. I think I need to read it again.

  It is a conundrum.

  Ms. Lally has created a character in Vivian (the main Vivian, not her sister Vivian) that stays with you for days after you finish reading the book. It is Vivian’s book – there is little about much else than her quirks and her desire to find a way to the otherworld for she has been told all her life she’s a changeling and she feels she will only be at home when she can find her own people.

  Vivian advertises for a friend – but she only wants a friend named Penelope – and through some miracle she gets a response and someone almost as add as she answers and they form a sort of friendship but since both of them are so wrapped up in their own worlds they can’t really see what is going on in the other’s life. Yet they are good for each other.

  I cannot explain this book for it follows no real plot. I can tell you that I read some of the most amazing turns of phrase I have ever read. So beautifully worded I stopped my reading to go back and read them again. And again. I truly stepped out of my box for this one and I am glad that I did. I am not completely sure I grasped this book. I do think it took place somewhere over my head but it was a true reading experience.

  RATING:

  4.5

  THE GIVEAWAY:

  One lucky US reader will win a copy of Eggshells. Just enter as many ways as you would like on the Gleam widget below. Full rules are on the widget. Good luck everyone.

• BookNAround
  http://booknaround.blogspot.com/2017/04/review-eggshells-by-caitriona-lally.html
  Word count: 768

  Review: Eggshells by Caitriona Lally

  Sometimes I look at my daily life and think I live a very mundane existence. And that's why I read, to have experiences I'd never have, to be people I'll never be, to live lives far different from mine. Most of the time this works and I can slip into the skin of the characters or into the place or defining situation or a novel. But sometimes, just sometimes, I cannot make the leap. I cannot find a way into a character. Perhaps my very mundanity betrays me. And that leads to a very frustrating reading experience. Unfortunately, Caitriona Lally's Eggshells was one of those experiences for me.

  Vivian lives alone in the house she's inherited from her great aunt. She collects chairs, glares at the urn containing her great aunt's ashes, and frequently sniffs things to see if they've acquired her "meaty" scent yet (she's not big on hygiene). Her sister, also named Vivian, doesn't have much to do with her, clearly wanting to protect her children from their off-kilter aunt. Our main character Vivian actively avoids the neighbors but posts flyers on trees advertising for a friend named Penelope (the balance between consonants and vowels in the name is just right), cultivates a jungle of a front garden to encourage mice to move in, and walks all over Dublin looking for the portal she's convinced will send her back to fairy land, believing that she's a changeling. So you might say that she's a bit of an odd duck, an eccentric. Or you might wonder if she's so neuro-atypical that there is something more going on with her. She's an odd mix of amazingly insightful and strangely ignorant. There are textual hints that Vivian has been damaged in some way, especially by her father, but there's only a whisper of that, and only two or three brief times at that.

  Vivian's character is sometimes fanciful and other times just weird. Her obsession with smelling herself and wanting her unwashed scent on everything is almost animalistic and the repetition of the same adjectives to describe this tick becomes tedious throughout the novel. Her interactions with others, almost none of whom play any sort of real major role in the novel, are telling and allow the reader to see how she is viewed in general. She's clearly considered batty, not quite right. She is definitely childlike, operating most days on a whim. Appropriate social interactions are certainly a struggle for her. And so she goes about her days walking different routes around the city, trying to get back to the fairy world she's been looking for her whole life. The structure of her days is made up on the fly and only makes sense to her. These daily perambulations are broken up by a couple of small events, her uncomfortable meetings with Penelope, a woman almost as odd as Vivian; an unsolicited and unwelcome visit to her sister's family; and their rather unsuccessful return visit to her (she, however, considers it a success because "only 50 percent of the guests left in tears").

  Other readers have found Vivian charming and whimsical. I fear I am more like her annoyed older sister. She made me nuts. I wanted to get social services to intervene so that she had someone looking after her. And in the name of all that is holy, I wanted her to stop sniffing herself and take a bath. There was very little plot to the book to distract me from the fact that I wasn't enjoying spending time with this character either. Lally is obviously a talented writer given her beautiful turns of phrase and descriptive skill but she needed more than just a character who thought she was a changeling to hang a story on. As a starting concept, it was intriguing, but without a well-developed story around it, this feels like one long character exposition, not a fully fleshed out tale. I really wanted to be able to slip into Vivian's world. I just couldn't.

  For more information about Caitriona Lally and the book, check out her publisher's website as she doesn't do much social media. You can poke through her retired Twitter account too if you wish. Check out the book's Goodreads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

  Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and Melville House for sending me a copy of this book to review.

• Dublin Inquirer
  https://www.dublininquirer.com/2015/06/09/eggshells-by-caitriona-lally-reviewed/
  Word count: 888

  EGGSHELLS BY CAITRIONA LALLY, REVIEWED
  LOUISA MCGRATHJUNE 9, 2015
  From junkie dramatics to nosy neighbours, if you’ve lived in Dublin long enough, there is a good chance that you’ll have come across many of the situations that arise in Caitriona Lally’s debut novel Eggshells.

  But through the eyes of the books protagonist, Vivian, these everyday scenes are very different.

  We are introduced to Vivian in her inherited home, which is full to bursting with clutter and a chair collection. She is holding her Aunt Maud’s ashes, but doesn’t know what to do with them. After her death, Vivian cremated her aunt to ensure that she was well and truly dead. This type of brutal honesty appears throughout her narrative, often resulting in a chuckle for any reader who understands social norms.

  It soon becomes clear that Vivian isn’t your average Dubliner. She is convinced she is a changeling who doesn’t belong here and spends her days traipsing around the city looking for a portal back to her world, desperately hoping she can find Narnia.

  She imagines Dublin street names have a magical meaning and visits them to search for this portal. Each chapter tracks a day in Vivian’s life and the places she visits along the way.

  Vivian has other quirks too; she has a fascination with words and makes extensive lists, which are painful to read at times. She is constantly personifying words or objects and can relate to them more than people, waving at statues as she passes them.

  She awkwardly tries to copy the behaviour of those she observes, saying she is in between laughs because she doesn’t like hers. She takes tips from Fawlty Towers when welcoming guests into her home.

  Vivian appears to have some sort of intellectual disability, although it is never labelled. The book’s style calls to mind The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, which was narrated by a teenager with mild autism. Similarly, it features detailed descriptions and a protagonist who doesn’t understand others or their emotions.

  But Eggshells isn’t as dramatic; the most exciting occurrences are a day of eating blue foods and a visit from the social-welfare officer, for whom Vivian wears khakis to show she is a serious job hunter – this scene was definitely a highlight.

  The story is slow to start, but by chapter five it becomes more engaging and humorous. However Vivian’s long thought processes endure, as does the compulsive list making which seems pointless once we are introduced to Vivian’s mindset.

  After advertising for a new friend called Penelope, Vivian’s social life gets a boost when a free-spirited, cat-loving artist responds. The pair seems to be a good match, both agreeing that “hygiene is overrated”.

  Even though she is a social-welfare recipient, Vivian has no financial worries. Job seeking is more of a hobby for her as she looks for a position as a bubble blower. Eggshells would probably connect with more people if Vivian did struggle with money, but that would make for a very different story.

  Being unemployed does have an effect on Vivian that many can relate to. We see her waste her days away as she fills them with nonsensical activities to stay busy, such as planning trips to more than one shop in order to maximise the number of sentences she can say. Her biggest achievement is finishing a baked-beans jigsaw, which shows the loneliness and sadness of her existence. Dreams about wasted things begin to invade her sleep.

  On a lighter note, Vivian’s thoughts and creative descriptions are so ludicrous that they often induce a laugh. She makes amusing, yet striking, observations about Dublin. Eggshells could be an alternative guide to the city, which includes a comprehensive list of the street signs that have letters missing.

  Despite feeling lost, Vivian’s knowledge of Dublin is impressive; she is familiar with hidden places that would take residents years to discover. Although she is clueless about her strangeness, it’s a pity she doesn’t meet more accepting people.

  Eggshells is the perfect gift to send to expats of Dublin. The detailed descriptions of it’s streets, buildings and natives would be a pleasant and comical reminder of the city.

  The author could have done more to draw the reader in. The plot is more of an afterthought as Eggshells focuses only on Vivian, who ignores other people’s speech if they speak at length. More information about her background would be engaging; many questions are left unanswered at the end: why did she hate her aunt? How old is she?

  If you are a fan of action, I definitely wouldn’t recommend this book. But if you have some patience, a fascination with word play or a love for Dublin, Eggshells is worth reading for its fresh view of the city and its charming, meaningful climax.

  Editor’s note: the managing editor of Dublin Inquirer is married to the managing editor of Liberties Press, the publisher of this book.

• Bex Writes
  http://bexwrites.com/book-reviews/eggshells-by-caitriona-lally/
  Word count: 559

  Eggshells, by Caitriona Lally

  March 15, 2017 by bex Leave a Comment

  Vivian is wonderfully, extraordinarily, odd. She keeps her great aunt’s ashes in a box rather than an urn because “death in a box is more real than death in a jar.” She doesn’t like verbs because they expect too much, and prefers examples to instances. Vivian (she prefers viv, a palindrome) wants a friend named Penelope so that she can eventually ask why Penelope doesn’t rhyme with antelope. She breathes best in the presence of “discordant imperfection.”

  Yet Vivian is also unexpectedly kind. She tucks money into the pockets of cardigans in charity shops, and stashes her own money between the pages Hansel and Gretel, “so that the woodcutter can buy food for his family and Hansel and Gretel will be safe from the witch’s oven.”

  She believes she is a changeling and spends her days wandering the city, looking for portals. Vivian crosses bridges with a coin under her tongue. She once tries to ask a leprechaun the way to the end of the rainbow. She wears Dorothy’s slippers to search for the Yellow Brick Road, and always checks wardrobes for Narnia. She walks until she finds herself back in her great-aunt’s house, where she draws the shape of the day’s movement and checks on Lemonfish, a pet whose recent acquisition highlights Vivian’s isolation and loneliness.

  She wants friends. She asks a telemarketer to take her to a fancy-dress party (she’d go as a migraine), and has a dithering conversation with the receptionist at the hairdresser about the one-legged stance of the number four versus the two, which looks backwards. Vivian’s awkwardness is extreme, but feeling like an outsider is something we can all relate to.

  This book is special for so many reasons. Readers never know what Vivian looks like. Shrouding the mirrors after a death is an old Irish custom, and Vivan never removes the sheets from the mirrors. Readers must get to know her without the visual element. Also, Vivian’s quests often have basis in mythology and literature, from the River Styx to Middle Earth, and serve as a love letter to some of the best classic works of fantasy. Vivian’s own musings on language and life, and her constant search for a pattern to unlock the world, explore universal, but easily missed, questions.

  She finds patterns and pictures in everything. Every day she draws the shape of her walks: “the ECG of a patient who flatlined briefly, before rallying into a healthy peak;” “a headless, armless man, sliced vertically in two;” “a staircase dangling on a fishrod.” She also trawls her great aunt’s books, recording the last letter in each volume hoping to find a word-pattern, “a code, or message, or a map, leading to [her] rightful world.”

  Lally subtly weaves Vivian’s past into the story, but doesn’t over explain. Lally allows Vivan to be herself, without apologies or recriminations. Though she sometimes makes us recoil, Vivian ultimately makes a permanent place in reader’s hearts. That is the most special thing of all about Lally’s book, the idea that we can all be accepted and loved for being ourselves.

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