GLORIOUS EXPLOITS gets a glorious response

Ferdia Lennon’s wonderful first novel has been a long time in the making. I first met him in 2014 when he graduated from the MA in Creative Writing at UEA, and he was working on the short story that became Glorious Exploits.

The long and careful brewing of the book has been appreciated by readers and press alike, with a raft of wonderful reviews. Two of my favourites are the Observer review by Killian Fox who writes ‘The novel is raucously funny – Lampo is a brilliant comic creation – but Lennon, a classics graduate, blends the laughs with tragedy of the blackest pitch’, and calls the writing ‘beautifully controlled’; and this week’s FT audiobook round-up by Alex Clark.

Ferdia narrates his own audiobook, and does it brilliantly. Alex Clark writes:

‘Lennon’s performance switches from the adventures of these cheeky ne’er-do-wells to the more sombre prospect of a landscape in which the trophies of war might include a human bone alongside a glittering piece of armour. It’s an imaginative delight made all the more powerful by blending modern colloquialism — especially the particularities of Irish idiom — with its vivid historical setting.’

It's a moving thing to talk to an author for several years about their words on the page, and then to hear them read those words. The book lights up all over again.

— Rebecca