Debut Fiction: Juliano Zaffino and Caragh Maxwell

Mick Lally Theatre

Mick Lally Theatre, Ireland

Juliano Zaffino’s The Steps is a novel that is at once deeply moving and eerily unsettling. With echoes of Virginia Woolf and Shirley Jackson, Zaffino uses psychological suspense to create an intimate and uncanny family drama. Caragh Maxwell’s Sugartown is a remarkable Irish debut about growing up and moving backwards. When Saoirse moved to London, she was supposed to have left Ireland and her messy family dynamics behind for good. But when her five-year relationship ends, she has no choice but to return home.