Wild Houses

It’s the biggest weekend of the year and everything is about to change – the thrilling debut novel from the prize-winning author.

In Ballina, the simmering feud between small-time drug-dealer Cillian English and County Mayo’s enforcers, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, spills over into violence and an ugly ultimatum. Soon the reclusive Dev and Cillian’s teenage brother Doll are drawn headlong into the Ferdias’ revenge fantasy. Meanwhile, Doll’s girlfriend Nicky sets out on a feverish mission to save him.

Life in this ordinary town will never be the same again…

AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVELIST
SHORTLISTED FOR IRISH BOOK AWARDS NOVEL OF THE YEAR
LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2025

Review

Sublime… Wild Houses is a thrillingly moreish novel with some of the sharpest dialogue I’ve read in any recent debut and characters who held me captive until the very last page ― Sunday Times

A delicate and beautiful book about the lives of lonely people... Page after faultless page, Wild Houses is a sheer joy to read... Colin Barrett's the real deal, but then we knew that already ― Irish Times

So consistently witty and inventive that one struggles to think of recent novels that could stand up to comparison ― Guardian, *Book of the Day*

With a thrillerish intensity… Barrett expertly handles the combination of narrative-driving dialogue, exhilarating action scenes and quieter moments designed to build tension… I was unable to put Wild Houses down ― Times Literary Supplement

After years of short stories, Barrett’s transition to the longer span of the novel is confidently done. Descriptive set pieces are linked and expanded, yet every paragraph is created with care ― Financial Times

You’ll love Colin Barrett’s debut novel… Barrett has a keen ear for the absurd that held me captive until the very last page ― Sunday Times

With two collections behind him, Barrett is well established as a master both of the short story and the sentence; his debut novel confirms and extends all his promise. Wild Houses is a propulsive, darkly comic and superlatively written account of frustration and misadventure in a small Irish town... The connections between the cast and the past tragedies that have forged them are expertly revealed in a slow-burn study of character and fate that’s also an edge-of-your-seat thriller. Violence and farce mingle in a novel that feels as sharp, funny and bitingly bittersweet as life -- Booker Judges, 2024

Barrett’s superb debut novel deepens the world of his two short-story collections… The novel has the tension of a gritty noir thriller and the comic menace of a Pinter play ― New Statesman

Barrett can sustain a narrative across a novel without sacrificing the panache and precision that has made himone of the most stylish fiction writers at work today. His prose is a delight from the first page ― i

Wild Houses realises life in full and without pity... A palpable sense of human eccentricity, and endurance, is always there, just beneath the surface ― Daily Telegraph

About the Author

Colin Barrett grew up in County Mayo, Ireland. His stories have been published in the Stinging Fly, Granta, Harper's and the New Yorker. His first book, the short story collection Young Skins, won the Guardian First Book Award, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. His second collection, Homesickness, made the New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year and was a Book of the Year in Oprah Daily and the Irish Times.