The Amendments - by Niamh Mulvey

About the Book

A sweeping family saga that tells the story of three Irish women and their struggles to find love, meaning and freedom against a backdrop of enormous social and cultural change as Ireland marks time with a series of abortion referendums.

Book Synopsis

'Extraordinary. I loved it' - Jessie Burton
'Engrossing and moving . . . gives voice to so much that's unspoken about Ireland' - Emma Donoghue
'Wonderfully compelling . . . haunting' - Joseph O'Connor

Delving into the lives of three generations of women, The Amendments is an extraordinary novel about love and freedom, belonging and rebellion - and about how our past is a vital presence which sits alongside us.

Nell and her partner Adrienne are about to have a baby. For Adrienne, it's the start of a new life. For Nell, it's the reason the two of them are sitting in a therapist's office. Because she can't go into this without dealing with the truth: that she has been a mother before, and now she can hardly bring herself to speak to her own mother, let alone return home to Ireland.

Nell is running out of places to hide from her past.

But to Ireland and the past is where she must go, and that is where The Amendments takes us: to the heat of Nell's teenage years in the early 2000s, as Ireland was unpicking itself from its faith and embracing the hedonism of the Celtic Tiger. To 1983, when Nell's mother Dolores was grappling with the tensions of the women's rights movement. And then to the farms and suburbs and towns that made and unmade the lives at the centre of this story, bound together by the terrible secret that Nell still cannot face.

Selected by the Irish Independent, the Irish Times, the Irish Journal and VIP as one of the most anticipated novels of the year.

Review Quotes

"Niamh Mulvey's wonderfully compelling characters and deft, clear prose offer great pleasure. Her sense of political and cultural change is sharp, and the beauty she finds in days of struggle is haunting." --Joseph O'Connor, author of My Father's House and Star of the Sea

"A smart, subtle, engrossing and moving novel that gives voice to so much that's unspoken about Ireland and about youth." --Emma Donoghue, Booker prize-shortlisted author of Room

"An extraordinary achievement. The Amendments is about a lot of things - love, family, girlhood, growing up, sex, legacy, compassion - all blended into a moving plot, expertly handled. Wonderful." --Jessie Burton, bestselling author of The Miniaturist

"I loved The Amendments. Rare is the novel that is as significant as it is enjoyable: her characters glimmer with heart and soul, her writing is beautiful and her themes profound. It's a book about mothers and daughters, friendship, hope, bravery and what it means to believe in something. A fantastic and important achievement.'" --Emma Stonex, author of The Lamplighters

"Rarely has a book moved me as The Amendments has: it cuts to the heart of what it means to be human, to want, to love, to be a mother or a daughter or a woman moving through the world. It's a triumph of a book, and a vital one too" --Elizabeth Macneal, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Doll Factory

"I genuinely loved The Amendments. I found it such a tender, compassionate, deeply believable novel. I'd defy any Irish woman, in particular, to read this and not feel that sense of innate recognition that all the best writing elicits." --Niamh Hargan, author of Twelve Days in May

"In her debut novel, Mulvey explores Ireland's history of control over women and their fertility through the story of Nell and her partner Adrienne" --Irish Journal

"Online heat has been rising slowly but suely around Niamh Mulvey's intriguing debut novel, The Amendments . . . Abortion, the Church, teenage pregnancy, the Celtic Tiger - Mulvey has covered plenty of ground." --Irish Independent

"Delving into the lives of three generations of women, we see how Ireland has changed over the course of one family . . . While Nell and Dolores feel like they're miles apart, their stories are more similar than they expected." --VIP

"Niamh Mulvey has written a deft and deeply moving fiction about cross-generational secrets and longings, because such is the stuff of our everyday, dramatic, secretive lives. This is a work of beauty and insight." --Ed O'Loughlin

"There's so much casually imparted wisdom in Mulvey's writing that reading her work feels as if you've been through therapy without realising it. The Amendments is a compelling, beautifully observed novel about the long reach of shame in the lives of Irish women across generations." --Sarah Gilmartin

About the Author

Niamh Mulvey is the author of the short story collection, Hearts and Bones, which was shortlisted for the John McGahern Award. Her short fiction has been published in The Stinging Fly, Banshee, Southword and The Irish Times and has been shortlisted for the Seán O'Faoláin Prize. She lives in Kilkenny, Ireland. The Amendments is her first novel.