The Young Wan

Brendan O'Carroll

Jan 2004 · Kuthengiswe ngu-Penguin

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Before she was a Mammy, before she had Chisellers, and before they made her a Granny, Agnes Browne was Agnes Reddin, a young girl-or a Young Wan- growing up in the Jarro in Dublin. 

Brendan O'Carroll takes readers back to the heart of working-class Dublin, this time in the 1940s.  Together with her soon to be lifelong best friend Marion Delany, young Agnes manages to survive the indignities and demands of Catholic school, the unwanted births of siblings, days spent in the factories and markets, and nights in the dance hall as rock-and-roll invades Dublin.

But on the eve of her wedding night, the Jarro is alive with gossip—will Agnes be turned away at the altar?  For the whole parish knows Agnes's not-so-well-kept secret.  And with a mother falling further into dementia, and a younger sister turning to a life of crime, it's up to Agnes alone to keep her splintering family together, while trying to create one of her own. 

Filled with O'Carroll's trademark wicked wit and loving, larger-than-life characters, The Young Wan shows the hardscrabble beginnings of the ultimate Irish mother and family.

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Brendan O'Carroll, the youngest of eleven children, was born in Stonybatter, a North Dublin neighborhood, in 1955. He is an acclaimed playwright and Ireland's most popular stand-up comedian. The creator of a hugely successful Irish radio show, Mrs. Browne's Boys (the genesis of his novels), O'Carroll is also an actor and has a role in the upcoming film version of Angela's Ashes. All the books in his Mrs. Browne trilogy were #1 bestsellers in his native Ireland. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.