Top

We have updated our Privacy Policy Please take a moment to review it. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy.

Big Girl, Small Town

On sale

20th February 2020

Price: £9.99

Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, 2022

Select a format

Selected: Digital (deliver electronic) / ISBN-13: 9781529304237

Disclosure: If you buy products using the retailer buttons above, we may earn a commission from the retailers you visit.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD

SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COMEDY WOMEN IN PRINT PRIZE

LONGLISTED FOR THE ONDAATJE PRIZE

Milkman meets Derry Girls. A cracking read’ Sinead Moriarty

‘A thrillingly fresh, provocative and touching voice’ Marian Keyes

‘Bawdy yet beautiful, full of everyday tragedy, absurdity and truth. I grew extraordinarily attached to Majella’ Sara Baume

Routine makes Majella’s world small but change is about to make it a whole lot bigger.

*Stuff Majella knows*
-God doesn’t punish men with baldness for wearing ladies’ knickers
-Banana-flavoured condoms taste the same as nutrition shakes
-Not everyone gets a volley of gunshots over their grave as they are being lowered into the ground

*Stuff Majella doesn’t know*
-That she is autistic
-Why her ma drinks
-Where her da is

Other people find Majella odd. She keeps herself to herself, she doesn’t like gossip and she isn’t interested in knowing her neighbours’ business. But suddenly everyone in the small town in Northern Ireland where she grew up wants to know all about hers.

Since her da disappeared during the Troubles, Majella has tried to live a quiet life with her alcoholic mother. She works in the local chip shop (Monday-Saturday, Sunday off), wears the same clothes every day (overalls, too small), has the same dinner each night (fish and chips, nuked in the microwave) and binge watches Dallas (the best show ever aired on TV) from the safety of her single bed. She has no friends and no boyfriend and Majella thinks things are better that way.

But Majella’s safe and predictable existence is shattered when her grandmother dies and as much as she wants things to go back to normal, Majella comes to realise that maybe there is more to life. And it might just be that from tragedy comes Majella’s one chance at escape.

‘It’s a smasher’ Kathy Burke

* Michelle’s latest novel Factory Girls is available now*

What's Inside

Read More Read Less

Reviews

Sinead Moriarty
Milkman meets Derry Girls. A cracking read
Sara Baume
Bawdy yet beautiful, full of everyday tragedy, absurdity and truth. I grew extraordinarily attached to Majella
Daily Mail
A winning evocation of a small Irish community whose people burst from its pages. Engaging and satisfying
Marian Keyes
A thrillingly fresh, provocative and touching voice
Irish Examiner
Superb
Sunday Independent
Northern Ireland is currently producing more exceptional writers per square inch than possibly anywhere else . . . Michelle Gallen will most certainly earn her place in the honours list. Big Girl, Small Town is even funnier than Derry Girls, while being just as fraught as Anna Burns's Booker Prize winner
Irish Times
Captivating . . . a confident debut with a very memorable protagonist in Majella
Guardian
What a voice: I felt as though I knew Majella intimately by the end . . . Big Girl, Small Town is a darkly hilarious novel about small-town life, which manages to be wildly entertaining despite being mostly set in a chip shop - a fine place in which to loiter with such a filthy, funny, clever companion
Mail on Sunday
Darkly funny
Sunday Business Post
It's the humour, dry and gritty, that sets Big Girl, Small Town apart . . . to think that this is Michelle Gallen's debut is astonishing, as Majella's narration is bold and assured . . . evocative, caustic and compelling
Metro
Gallen's debut deserves comparisons with Anna Burns' Milkman for its depiction of the impact of the Troubles on a vulnerable young woman but this terrifically imagined tender black comedy is very much its own book
Sunday Times
Charming . . . there is an easy warmth to Big Girl, Small Town
Financial Times
Gallen's unrelenting eye for the bizarre and Coughlan's talent for deadpanning make it an absolute winner
Booklist (starred review)
Majella is a nuanced and complicated heroine, reliant on routines and largely dismissive of change. Infused with local diction, inflection, and slang, her voice envelops readers in the sounds of small-town Ireland
Library Journal (starred review)
Majella is a compelling character caught in a fascinating slice of time, and her journey is exquisitely rendered. With echoes of Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine crossed with the 1990s-set British sitcom Derry Girls, this debut is recommended for fans of Ottessa Moshfegh, Emma Donoghue, and Sally Rooney
Irish Independent
Hugely charming
Wall Street Journal
[A]n inventively foulmouthed gem of a novel . . . a novel that is, above all, an intimate portrait of a peculiar - and peculiarly resilient - woman who is fated to notice everything and forget nothing
Washington Post
An immensely lovable debut novel
Roddy Doyle, Irish Times
Wild and engrossing . . . unexpected and wonderful
Daily Mail
Gallen's darkly comic debut is an unforgettable portrait of a young woman whose rich internal life offers a brilliantly observed commentary on her bleak surroundings
Kathy Burke
It's a smasher
Claudia Carroll
The funniest debut I've ever read
Christy Lefteri
I loved Majella from the first page . . . Utterly brilliant and deliciously hilarious! With humour, wit and beauty, Gallen subtly unveils a violence and conflict that lies beneath, exploring the legacy of the Troubles and the deeply felt effects through generations
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Sensational . . . Gallen's effortless immersion into a gritty, endlessly bittersweet world packs a dizzying punch
Kirkus
An irreverent portrait of small-town Northern Ireland that is both bleakly and uproariously funny