Girl in the Making

Winner of the John McGahern Prize for Fiction 2025

A Guardian ‘Best Fiction of 2024’ Selection

‘Captured in careful, accurate detail ? a novel of concealment and shocking revelation. Fitzgerald has managed to create an unforgettable heroine and a dark picture of the world around her.’ Colm Tóibìn

‘Devastating’ Anne Enright

‘A gifted writer’ Irish Times

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Jean Kennedy is a gentle, perceptive girl growing up in a very strange world: suburban Dublin in the 1970s and ’80s. In the company of her mother, her Aunty Ida, and her little brother Baby John F., Jean experiences love and joy. But home is not a safe place, and Jean is unequal and unprotected. When she speaks just one small part of the truth, she must quickly learn to navigate the dangers and possibilities of a world she scarcely understands.

Jean’s hypnotic, unsparing and ultimately hopeful voice captures the dreams and terrors of girlhood in a brutally hypocritical world, and offers glimpses of a better life. Through it all, Jean’s voice pulsates with insight and passion. Girl in the Making is a deeply moving, propulsive coming-of-age story from a major new talent.

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‘Beautiful’ Louise Nealon

‘Magnificent’ Aingeala Flannery

‘Masterful’ Kathleen MacMahon

‘Deeply moving and beautifully written ? Fitzgerald’s prose has a crispness and a depth that surprises and delights’ Irish Times

‘Tender and perceptive ? simply unforgettable’ Irish Examiner

‘Reminiscent of the work of Tessa Hadley and Elena Ferrante’ Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

‘Devastating and superb’ Irish Independent