Pushkin imprint One snaps up Gilmartin's 'exceptional' novel Service

Pushkin Press imprint One has landed Irish writer Sarah Gilmartin’s second novel Service, a novel exploring #Metoo, power and sexual politics from three different perspectives in a restaurant business.

Deputy publisher Laura Macaulay acquired British Commonwealth rights from Sallyanne Sweeney at Mulcahy Sweeney Associates. 

Set in a high-end Dublin restaurant in the mid-2000s, the novel explores power dynamics from the point of view of a waitress, a domineering chef and the chef’s wife. "Gilmartin captures the buzz and bustle of restaurant life and charts the escalation of banal bullying into something much darker," the synopsis states. "The three perspectives jostle with and contradict each other, revealing the deep and widespread impact of poisonous behaviour on individuals and the culture more broadly."

Macaulay said: "This is the novel we need right now. Sarah Gilmartin writes with extraordinary empathy, yet never looks away, and she manages to pull it all off with a lightness and humour that makes this exceptional. I’m thrilled to be publishing this perfectly constructed, moving, and absolutely on point novel."

Gilmartin is a writer and arts journalist. Her stories have been published in the Dublin Review, New Irish Writing and the Tangerine. Her debut novel Dinner Party (Pushkin) was shortlisted for best newcomer at the Irish Book Awards and the Kate O’Brien Award 2022.  

"I’m excited to be working with the excellent team at Pushkin again for this new novel," she said. "To see their enthusiasm for Service has been really gratifying as the book is a good few years in the making, a story of the frenetic Irish restaurant world that I hope will resonate with readers everywhere."