One Star Awake
One Star Awake
by Andrew Meehan
One Star Awake is a stunningly inventive novel, a thrilling work of art – by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, witty and urgently poetic. This is a fractured fairy tale – a funny and touching testament to the highs and lows of self-discovery and love found in unlikely places.
Trade Format, PB | 280pp | ISBN: 9781848406278 | Release Date: September 2017
Longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize
A young woman comes to in the Paris restaurant in which she apparently works – she has survived some kind of trauma, but her memories haven’t. Something tells her there has been a reprieve. Yet when she crosses paths with a mysterious man called Eagleback, she becomes convinced that he holds the key to her identity. Over the course of a hot, sticky summer, she covertly pursues Eagleback while re-learning how to live. Then she must decide if she is ready to solve the emotional puzzle of her life so far. One Star Awake is a stunningly inventive novel, a thrilling work of art – by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, witty and urgently poetic. This is a fractured fairy tale – a funny and touching testament to the highs and lows of self-discovery and love found in unlikely places.
About the Author
Andrew Meehan is a well-known script writer and formerly Head of Development at the Irish Film Board. His fiction writing has been anthologised in Town and Country: The Faber Book of New Irish Storiesand Winter Pages. One Star Awake is his first novel. He is based in Dublin and Glasgow.
Reviews
“The twinned themes of memory and trauma are to the fore in a most unusual rendering that quietly grips the reader from the opening pages...Meehan is a naturally comic writer, in the vein of Kevin Barry and Colin Barrett, who sees humour in grim, airless situations.”
“Meehan teases out the story through these two perspectives, and deals deftly with the challenge of ventriloquising a mentally disturbed amnesiac, who he treats with the delicacy of an author who has fallen in love with their creation. This is an astute and affecting work, cleverly plotted and paced. The writing is exceptional.”
“Andrew Meehan, a former head of development at the Irish Film Board, breathes new life into this subgenre in his debut novel by injecting humour and self-effacement into the existential riddle...This feeling of trying to hit a moving target gives One Star Awake a Teflon-coated atmosphere throughout that supplies it with thriller DNA.”
“Mesmerising, inventive, heart-wrenching, and brilliantly realised. The most interesting debut of 2017.”
“A novel of the loveliest alchemy: playful, sensual and poignant, with a cast of beguiling characters.”
“An acute psychological study that rips along with the pace of a thriller, One Star Awake is also very funny, deliciously written, and deeply atmospheric in its Parisian setting. Hugely addictive.”
“The most unusually brilliant novel you will read this year. Meehan’s writing is fast, furious and very funny.”
