Factory Girls by Michelle Gallen
Synopsis
It's the summer of 1994, and all Maeve Murray wants is some money and good exam results so she can escape her shitty wee town in Northern Ireland.
Over the holidays, Maeve bags herself a job at the local shirt factory with her best friends Caroline and Aoife. It's set to be the summer of their lives, but first she's got to survive a tit-for-tat paramilitary campaign as brutal as her relationship with her mam, iron 800 shirts a day to keep her job and dodge the attentions of Handy Andy Strawbridge, her slimy English boss. And when she starts to notice things aren't adding up at the factory, it seems like revealing the truth may just be her one-way ticket out of town.
Reviews
'The perfect pick for those missing their dose of Derry Girls' Irish Examiner
'Entertaining, touching and savagely funny' Sunday Times
'Vital, bang-on, and seriously funny' Roddy Doyle
About the Author
Michelle Gallen was born in Tyrone in the 1970s and grew up during the Troubles a few miles from the border. She studied English Literature at Trinity College Dublin. Her first novel, Big Girl, Small Town, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, the Comedy Women in Print Prize, Newcomer of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and the Kate O'Brien Award. It was longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Pri