Valley of the Squinting Windows

In a small Irish village, respectability is a currency and gossip is weapons. Mrs. Brennan, the dressmaker, has secured her status: her son John is training for the priesthood, and in this community, that makes her untouchable. Her sharp tongue cuts anyone who crosses her, and her husband's sins are forgotten because he fathered a future man of the cloth. But when John doesn't quite follow the path his mother has ordained, the village's polite civility dissolves into something older and uglier. MacNamara's 1918 novel detonated the romantic myth of rural Ireland, exposing the pettiness, cruelty, and desperate status-seeking that polite society pretended not to see. It's a savage, funny, uncomfortable book: the kind that made neighbors stop speaking to each other. For readers who enjoy sharp satire and stories that pull no punches.