John Murray to publish new novel from McInerney

John Murray Publishers has acquired a new novel from Women’s Prize for Fiction winner Lisa McInerney.

Set in Cork against the backdrop of a rapidly changing Ireland, with a "riotous cast of characters", The Rules of Revelation will be published on 13th May 2021. 

The book is about "coming home, growing up and understanding that the place that shaped you doesn’t need to be the place that breaks you," says the publisher.

The synopsis reads: "Mel comes back to Cork from Brexit Britain, ill-equipped to deal with the resurgence of a family scandal. Eleventh-hour revolutionary Maureen won't stop until she's rewritten her city's history. Former sex worker Georgie is urged to tell her story by a journalist with her own agenda. And Karine prepares for her ex-boyfriend's return, knowing that Ryan’s going to warp all around him... and that she's going to help him do it."

The publisher secured world rights from Ivan Mulcahy at MMB Creative.

John Murray will also reissue McInerney's debut, The Glorious Heresies (2015), which won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2016 and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and her second novel, The Blood Miracles (2017), this April. 

The cover artwork for all three titles has been designed by screenprinter Kate Gibb. 

Jocasta Hamilton, publisher, said: "Lisa combines prose with an irrepressible energy and a tenderness for the fragile bravado of her characters. While reeling from their pasts and anxious about their futures, they are as deeply charismatic as they are damaged. I finished The Rules of Revelation on the best kind of a reading high—dazzled by language, thoroughly entertained and caring deeply."

McInerney commented: "I think this is the most personal of my three novels, in that it's about art, and making art when you don't come from a background that actively encourages it, finding your voice in a world that you're not entirely comfortable in. The novel is set in a newly confident Ireland, after those two huge referendums [marriage equality and abortion rights], and it was exciting to be able to pull the lens back a bit and focus on a version of Ireland that actually might allow my characters in, for a change. I wanted to celebrate how Ireland has changed so fast for the better, and explore what that might mean for five stubborn and perceptive misfits, but equally I was driven to acknowledge genuine disparity, especially that between contemporary, commercialised feminism and working-class life, and focus on people on the periphery of feminism, either left behind by it, or not quite at peace with it as a movement or philosophy."

Alongside the new deal, McInerney has been commissioned to write a six-part TV series, based on her books, by ITV Studios, in conjunction with RTE, creating an original Irish drama series intended to have international TV impact.