Exciting Times

An intimate, bracingly intelligent debut novel about a millennial Irish expat who becomes entangled in a love triangle with a male banker and a female lawyer

When you leave Ireland aged 22 to spend your parents' money, it's called a gap year. When Ava leaves Ireland aged 22 to make her own money, she's not sure what to call it, but it involves:  a badly-paid job in Hong Kong, teaching English grammar to rich children;  Julian, who likes to spend money on Ava and lets her move into his guest room;  Edith, who Ava meets while Julian is out of town and actually listens to her when she talks;  money, love, cynicism, unspoken feelings and unlikely connections. 

"In the tradition of Dorothy Parker, Joan Rivers and Nora Ephron... I found myself purring with pleasure...This is comic writing at the highest level."  -  Craig Brown, The Daily Mail

"Dolan has a wonderfully intuitive and fluid handle on Ava, a young person who equates adulthood with moral imperfection and who finds herself disgusted and beguiled by both... an examination of sex, queerness, self-sabotage, power, and privilege. Its milieu is young and left-leaning, and its tone is dry, sharp, and cerebral..."  -  Katy Waldman, The New Yorker

Politically alert, heartbreakingly raw, and dryly funny, Exciting Times is thrillingly attuned to the great freedoms and greater uncertainties of modern love. In stylish, uncluttered prose, Naoise Dolan dissects the personal and financial transactions that make up a life.

Naoise Dolan is an Irish writer. She writes fiction, essays, criticism & features for publications including The London Review of Books, The Guardian & Vogue. Exciting Times, a bestseller, has been optioned for TV. Dolan has been shortlisted & longlisted for several prizes.