Sophie White at the Oxford Literary Festival

Tramp’s Sophie White and novelist Nicole Flattery discuss their latest novels and the female voice in contemporary Irish literature as part of this year’s Oxford Literary Festival.

White’s Where I End is a story of psychological and physical horror with a shattering ending. Teenager Aoileann has never left the island where she lives. Her mother is silent and bedbound after surviving a private disaster no-one will talk about. Aoileann desperately wants a family and finds a focus for her love when artist Rachel and her baby arrive on the island. The story is concerned with family, isolation, neglect and the dangerously intoxicating nature of love. Check out the book here.

Flattery’s Nothing Special is set in 1960s New York where teenager Mae is hired as a typist for Andy Warhol. Her job is to work alongside other girls to transcribe recordings Warhol has made of his friends as part of a plan to write an unconventional novel. She and some of her fellow typists set off on a surreal adventure at the fringes of the countercultural movement. Mae has to determine how she can remain her own person as the tide of the 60s sweeps over her. Nothing Special is Flattery’s debut novel.