The outsider
Novelist Jess Kidd grew up in London, but made frequent family trips to Mayo - and her childhood experience of Irish storytelling deeply informs her writing, not least in her new book Things In Jars, writes Sara Keating
It is barely three years since Jess Kidd published her debut novel, Himself, a magic-realist mystery set in rural Mayo with a wild cast of weird and warped Irish characters, including several ghosts. That novel was shortlisted for ‘debut of the year’ at the Irish Book Awards in 2016, a happy feat for the London-Irish writer, who had only begun writing in earnest two years before.
Kidd’s advancement through the ranks of the ...
