MIDNIGHT FEAST

Literature & Fiction

Evans, Martina

Genre Fiction

Not Specified

In her late 60s Beulah Kingston is still almost as tall, black-haired and headstrong as on her wedding day in 1944, the year Glen Miller - creator of the 'Devil's music' - was killed. Born into a strict Protestant sect (motto: no drinking, no dancing, no doctors), and brought up an innocent in the tiny Irish village of Two Mile Cross, Beulah has more knowledge of the Bible than of her true feelings and desires. Now, as she faces the prospect of hospital and an X-ray for the first time in her life, she finds herself compelled to re-examine the secret passion of her youth and the death of her decent-hearted husband. But what finally triggers the journey into a past shared only by her sister Hester, the ne'er-do-well Danny Fox and the village doctor Joe Costello, is the arrival of her grand-daughter Beccy, the spitting image of the teenage Beulah.

No Drinking, No Dancing, No Doctors

Bloomsbury Pub Ltd

This title tells the story of Beulah Kingston, who in her late sixties is still almost as tall and headstrong as on her wedding day in 1944. Born a Poleite, her zest for life has tested her simple faith to the limit. Now, with the prospect of hospital, she examines the true passion of her youth.

No Drinking No Dancing No Doctors

Contemporary

Bloomsbury Publishing

Midnight Feast

Mandarin

Martina Evans's third collection of poems begins and ends in the dentist's chair. In between come stories ranging from an Irish childhood to present-day London, featuring voices from the poet's own to those of her family, her cat, and a supporting cast of hectoring lawyers, born bores and rambling mothers. Evans combines a novelist's gift for creating compelling narratives and capturing conversational idiosyncracies with a poet's ability to condense and refine, making Can Dentists Be Trusted? a book that will delight the many who enjoyed its acclaimed predecessor All Alcoholics Are Charmers (1998). Martina Evans grew up in County Cork. After training as a radiographer in Dublin she moved to London in 1988. She teaches Creative Writing at the City Literary Institute and is currently Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Queen Mary College, University of London. She is also the author of three novels. 

Can Dentists Be Trusted?

Poetry

Anvil Press Poetry

Winner of the 2011 Piero Ciampi International Poetry Prize. The opening poems of the Cork-born writer's fourth collection draw on stories from her Irish childhood and tales of the impact of the Black and Tans on her family's locality in the 1920s. The heady brew of Irish politics and religion is close to the surface throughout. The title poem captures conversational drama in Martina Evans' most engaging style, familiar to audiences at her successful readings: My mother never asked like a normal person, it wasI’m asking you for the last time, I’m imploring younot to go up that road again late for Mass… Martina Evans, poet, novelist and teacher, was born in Cork, the youngest of ten children. She now lives in London with her daughter Liadáin. She has published three books of poetry and three novels.

Facing the Public

"A drama in anti-prosody, an interior female poetry of Cork life; here the world turns upon a pub, a petrol pump and an impossible love . . . a world is transfixed by personal drama, by epiphanies in bars and Icebergs, Aztecs and Bloody Marys creating a kind of alcoholic, consumerist birdlife that sings above the human drama. Evans' imagination is a unique one, darting, flitting, resonating with personal and poetic voices. As a poet she is one of a kind and brilliant."—Thomas McCarthy But I can't believe Justin would confide in you, Agnes said. But, you are the one Justin said under the lilac tree, you are the one to make Clodagh feel at home with your books and your love of flowers. I started watering the geraniums and straight away they were pointing their buds at me. In this prose poem disguised as a novella, thirteen-year-old Imelda thinks she's killed her mother by wishing she was dead. She doesn't want to wish the same fate on Justin, her mercurial and controlling twice-widowed father, owner of McConnell's bar, shop, and gas station. When Imelda's older sisters Bertha and Agnes disapprove of Justin's new fiancée, Justin elevates Imelda to the position of temporary favorite. Nobody including Imelda herself can believe her luck will last since Agnes is his true favorite. Besides, Justin can't stand Imelda's admirer, Danny Boy, her sisters are jealous, and Neily Sheehan, owner of the rival JFK Bar, is waiting for his chance to bring Justin down. 

Petrol

Literary

"She is at once emotional and shrewd: hidden behind the rich lace-curtain of her personal charm, her existentialism sings."—Thomas McCarthy "Martina Evans's poems are a miracle, for the way they combine total clarity with profundity: the way the apparently innocent and observant humour of their narrative surface covers a compassion and understanding that are often heartbreaking and heartbroken."— Bernard O'Donoghue Following her prose poem-cum-novella Petrol (2013), Martina Evans returns to her childhood and adolescence in County Cork, Ireland, with poems and prose poems which begin with the impact of American culture and particularly rock 'n' roll on the small town where she grew up. We move the Sacred Heart lampcloser to Elvis's face now in the monthof June. I think that thosebillboards of Vegascould be the Major cigarette signor the Double Diamond Works Wondersin the lounge window round '75or the BP pump shiningin the blue Burnfort evening . . . We encounter ghosts, travelers, shoes, old movies, alcoholics, and even Bart Simpson in Evans's poems as we move from her school and college days, with their eccentric cast of teachers, to contemporary London and the sights, sounds, and characters of Balls Pond Road, where she lives with her daughter and three cats. The book ends with a series of poems about youthful reading—from clandestine reading in class to the joy and escape of childhood reading—"the miracle / of the black marks straightening themselves / out into sense across the page."

Burnfort Las Vegas

Midnight Feast, winner of a Betty Trask Award, is the dark and funny story of love in a convent boarding school. When sixteen-year-old Grace arrives at Mayo, she immediately falls for the mercurial and glamorously thin Colette MacSweeney. She soon finds herself descending with Colette into life-threatening anorexia, entangled in the dysfunction that seethes below the surface of Colette's family. This is a new and revised edition.

Women's Fiction

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

From the winner of the Betty Trask Award and the Premio Ciampi International Prize for Poetry comes a collection which explores a 1960s Catholic upbringing in Cork, Ireland, set against the backdrop of Graceland and the poet's love for the music of Elvis Presley. Drawing on Evans' first five collections, The Windows of Graceland also delves into the dark recesses of Ireland's past and the violent atrocities committed by the Black and Tans, the IRA and the Easter Uprising. A leading voice in Irish literature, Martina Evans continues to drive right through to the emotional core of her readers with these sharp and compelling poems.

The Windows of Graceland

Carcanet Press Ltd.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Evans, Martina. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Evans, Martina

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Evans, Martina. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

MIDNIGHT FEAST

No Drinking, No Dancing, No Doctors

No Drinking No Dancing No Doctors

Midnight Feast

Can Dentists Be Trusted?

Facing the Public

Petrol

Burnfort Las Vegas

Midnight Feast

The Windows of Graceland