Synopsis:

Meet Majella O’Neill, a heroine like no other, in this captivating Irish debut that has been called Milkman meets Derry Girls.

Majella is happiest out of the spotlight, away from her neighbors’ stares and the gossips of the small town in Northern Ireland where she grew up just after the Troubles. She lives a quiet life caring for her alcoholic mother, working in the local chip shop, watching the regular customers come and go. She wears the same clothes each day (overalls, too small), has the same dinner each night (fish and chips, microwaved at home after her shift ends), and binge-watches old DVDs of the same show (Dallas, best show on TV) from the comfort of her bed. 

But underneath Majella’s seemingly ordinary life are the facts that she doesn’t know where her father is and that every person in her town has been changed by the lingering divide between Protestants and Catholics. When Majella’s predictable existence is upended by the death of her granny, she comes to realize there may be more to life than the gossips of Aghybogey, the pub, and the chip shop. In fact, there just may be a whole big world outside her small town. 

Told in a highly original voice, with a captivating heroine readers will love and root for, Big Girl, Small Town will appeal to fans of Sally Rooney, Ottessa Moshfegh, and accessible literary fiction with an edge. 

Big Girl, Small Town is darkly humorous and satisfyingly odd. While the writing style and the heavy Irish dialect take some getting used to, it’s easy to follow and makes the story (and characters) come alive!*

The reader gets to spend a week with Majella, a twenty-something girl who unknowingly falls somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Her life revolves around cleaning up after her alcoholic mother, binge-watching old episodes of Dallas, and working evenings frying up food at the local chip shop. But while her life appears ordinary at first, we slowly discover Majella grew up during the Troubles, her father has disappeared, and now her grandmother has died. She’s doing her best to make it from day to day, but it’s hard when she doesn’t like change and doesn’t like Other People. 

“Sometimes Majella thought that she should condense her whole list of things she wasn’t keen on into a single item:

• Other People.”

Michelle Gallen; Big Girl, Small Town

The novel is broken down into days and within each day are sections headed by the time and an item off of Majella’s list of things she likes or dislikes. I enjoyed the titles, finding most of them humorous and somehow a hint of what was to come within that section. It also made it easy to jump right back into the story each time I picked the book up.

“8.43 a.m. Item 3.7: Noise: Stuff smashing

It was the sound of a cup or a plate smashing that woke Majella.”

Michelle Gallen; Big Girl, Small Town