TELL ME WHAT I AM
Reviews and Endorsements
Mannion (A Crooked Tree) explores the long shadow of domestic violence in this outstanding mystery […] Mannion expertly intertwines Nessa and Ruby’s stories via visceral, close-third-person narration that alternates perspectives, and weaves through time to build tension and dole out reveals. Her subtly shaded characters add nuance and poignancy. This artful slow burn should earn Mannion new fans. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY starred review
'This beautiful, haunting novel beats with the heart of a thriller, but is so much more. Una Mannion is a writer of extraordinary talent, compassion and power.'
LOUISE KENNEDY
'An engrossing, deftly-told story with an aching secret at its heart, this is a profoundly moving novel of family and women standing strong together.'
LISA BALLANTYNE
Tell Me What I Am by Una Mannion is very VERY good. About the impact on her family when a woman disappears, it's vividly real. The writing is beautiful, the emotions are conveyed exquisitely. There's love here as well as pain.
MARIAN KEYES
'What a captivating book! We are with Nessa and Ruby all the way rooting for a breakthrough that will lead them to their mother/ sister but this is no ordinary thriller. The voices of our two protagonists are so authentic, the characterisation so real, that I followed their quest like a newshound. The writing is exquisite, the plotting is intricate and the story is utterly compelling. I loved it.'
LIZ NUGENT
‘Sharp, poignant, thrilling and moving. Tell Me What I Am is the kind of richly drawn, achingly atmospheric crime novel you can total immerse yourself in.’
CHRIS WHITAKER
'Intense, deftly suspenseful and beautifully written. Rich characterisation, suspense and long-buried, unsettling secrets mark this beautifully written crime novel about a fractured family.'
GARRY DISHER
A CROOKED TREE
‘The menace in this moody, meticulously plotted debut lies … within the mysteries of dysfunctional families, close-knit neighbourhoods harbouring dark secrets and adolescents’ imperfect, and sometimes disastrous, understanding of the world of adults’ New York Times
‘The author skilfully combines a coming-of-age story with the plot of a thriller in this convincing debut novel . . . Where Mannion excels is in evoking a time and a place that’s slipping away even as she pins it to the page with such perceptive, lyrical economy. Yoking a classic coming-of-age narrative to the pacier engine of a thriller takes skill and A Crooked Tree is more than persuasive.’ Guardian
‘A carefully-crafted debut novel … Mannion imparts Libby’s development in a series of subtle, suspenseful scenes that will leave the reader wanting more. An evocative and convincing coming-of-age story...’ Irish Times
‘A lushly atmospheric coming-of-age novel in which Libby’s splintering family seems to stand as a metaphor for America itself.’ Daily Mail
‘A coming-of-age novel with a huge heart. Beautiful, lyrical . . . and incredibly moving.’ Irish Independent
A painful, touching exploration of a teenager's attempt to make sense of the world and its cruelties.’ Literary Review
‘Packed full of small-town American ambiance, this is a tender tale of a young girl trying to do her best, written with such heart.’ Prima
‘Rich and exciting . . . a tremendous debut by a writer who is unafraid to defy genre expectations.’ Sunday Business Post
Suspenseful, affecting, and disarmingly evocative of childhood and the not-so-distant era of the 1980s.’ Kirkus
‘Tingling with menace and mystery… A Crooked Tree is a triumph of clever plotting, evocative writing, and an emotional intensity which lingers long after the last page has turned.’ Lancashire Post
‘Reminiscent of Joyce Carol Oates’ soul-curdlingly creepy American classic, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, Una Mannion’s A Crooked Tree is an assured and atmospheric debut, immaculately plotted, with a sense of danger seeping from every shadow. The fraught relationships between mothers and daughters, sisters, best friends and crushes, are captured deftly, as is the ominous sense that losing your balance on the twisting pathway from adolescence to young adulthood, for even just one moment, could have fatal consequences. A thoroughly gripping read.’ Lucy Caldwell
‘Una Mannion's a terrific writer and an exciting new talent. I thoroughly enjoyed her capacity to blend a narrative of suspense with evocative descriptions of social and breakdown and dysfunction in America, lightly but beautifully tracing that degradation right back to the demise of the Native Americans, of the trees, of the earth itself.’ Audrey Magee
‘Una Mannion beautifully chronicles what we lose in the badlands of family. Our fathers are ghosts, our mothers cannot bear the weight of our love, adolescence is lost in betrayal and misplaced desire. Mannion’s unique gift is not only to show us what is lost in the fracturing of families, but to take us to the places where they are imperfectly mended. A Crooked Tree beguiles us with a glimpse of the yearning soul of America, gifted and cursed with nostalgia for a past that never was. Wonderful.’ Eoin McNamee
‘Beautifully written with tenderness and wisdom, A Crooked Tree is at once an urgent, propulsive study of grief, anger, and family secrets, and a tightly wound coming-of-age story filled with complexity and grace. This is an accomplished book, and Libby Gallagher is one of the best young narrators I’ve met in years.’ Elizabeth Wetmore
‘Filled with pathos, nostalgia, and the best kind of suspense. Una Mannion has beautifully captured the experience of being a child on the verge of adulthood, struggling to fill in the gaps in her understanding of the world around her without much help or mentorship. This is a novel about the way that adults fail children, but also about the moment a child first understands that the adults around her are human — and the empathy that comes with that realization.’ Liz Moore
‘In A Crooked Tree Una Mannion explores the fractious dynamics of a family under stress with an unerring tenderness. Libby Gallagher is the compelling heart of this book. Through her we experience all the aching uncertainties of a teenager growing up in a world already ruptured by grief then shaken by unexpected and ominous events. Mannion has the ability to hone mystery from ordinary detail, to root charged emotion in the everyday. This is a beautifully written novel, painfully authentic, and as sure-footed as it is thrilling.’ Michèle Forbes
‘Completely entrancing — as suspenseful as a good thriller, steeped in an aching nostalgia but unflinchingly sharp-sighted. I tore through this novel.’ Julia Pierpont
‘A fiercely compelling novel about young people staring into a gritty adult world and fighting for their place in it. I couldn't stop reading because I had to find out what happened to these kids. Una Mannion shoots the lights out with this thrilling literary debut.’ Patrick Ryan
Una Mannion was born in Philadelphia and lives in County Sligo, Ireland. She has won numerous prizes for her poetry and short stories including the Hennessy Emerging Poetry Award and Cúirt International Literary Festival short story prize. She edits The Cormorant, a broadsheet of prose and poetry and teaches on the Writing + Literature BA at Atlantic Technological University, Sligo. Her debut novel A Crooked Tree was shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and for the Dalkey Emerging Writer prize and was winner of the Kate O'Brien Prize 2022.
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