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.
- ISBN10 0452284848
- ISBN13 9780452284845
- Publish Date 27 January 2004
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 24 July 2009
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc
- Imprint Plume
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 224
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780452284845