From the author of the acclaimed Big Girl, Small Town, a darkly comic coming-of-age story about a young woman working a summer job in a shirt factory in Northern Ireland, while tensions rise both inside and outside the factory walls.
It’s the summer of 1994 and all Maeve Murray wants are good final exam results so she can earn her ticket out of the wee Northern Irish town she has grown up in during the Troubles—away from her crowded home, the silence and sadness surrounding her sister’s death, and most of all away from the simmering violence and religious tensions of her divided community. And as a first step, Maeve’s taken a summer job in an integrated local shirt factory working alongside Protestants with her bff, cuddly kind Caroline Jackson, and her oblivious frenemy, privileged and clever Aoife O’Neill. But getting the right exam results are only part of Maeve’s problem – she’s got to survive a tit-for-tat paramilitary campaign as brutal as her relationship with her mam, iron 100 shirts an hour all day every day in the local factory, put up with the Proddies, and escape the attentions of Andy Strawbridge—her slick and untrustworthy English boss.
What seems to be a great opportunity to earn money before starting university turns out to be a crucible in which Maeve – and the other vulnerable workers in the factory – are tested in ways they’re not equipped to handle. And seeking justice for herself and her fellow workers may just be Maeve’s one-way ticket out of town.
Biting, perceptive, and steeped in the vernacular of its time and place, Factory Girls brings readers an unforgettable heroine willing to sacrifice everything to reach for her dreams.
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“This novel is a wonder; the heroine is cheeky, the humor dark, the dialect thick, the sorrow palpable.”
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Library Journal (starred review)