“Bolger writes incisively and perceptively about the secrets and lies that circulate beneath everyday life.”
— The Sunday Business Post

“The Unspeakable Secrets is a tightly written collection, restrained and precise.”
— Dany Gill, The Irish Times

“A master of his craft ... words that have the power to hypnotise.”
— The Irish Times

“In this new collection of short stories, Dermot Bolger explores with imaginative range the unreliability of memory and the explosive impact of long-buried secrets.”
— RTÉ (National broadcaster of Ireland)

★ The debut short story collection by a master of Irish literature: Dermot Bolger is one of Ireland's most celebrated contemporary writers, having long been renowned for his novels. This collection marks a milestone in his career as his first short story collection, drawing immediate and widespread attention upon publication.

★ Secrets and lies beneath the surface of everyday life: With keen insight, Bolger peels back the surface of everyday existence to delve into the secrets that both sustain and rupture human relationships.

★ A master of narrative suspense and unease: Bolger's prose is restrained and precise, layering suspense and disquiet within calm narration. His stories unfold like intricate puzzles—truths lie close at hand, waiting to be deciphered by those who know how to read them, and in doing so, understand their own lives. Readers will be drawn in and held captive by the compelling mysteries throughout.

★ A literary feast of interwoven themes: With imaginative depth, the collection explores the unreliability of memory, the explosive impact of long-buried secrets, identity, loss, and the search for meaning. These stories offer the readability of suspense fiction alongside the richness and depth of literary fiction—perfect for readers who enjoy short stories, Irish literature, and psychological realism.

This is Dermot Bolger's debut collection of short stories. He peels back the surface of everyday life to probe the secrets that sustain and rupture human relationships, creating a fictional world where nothing is predictable. Truths are always close at hand—if only people knew how to read the clues, they might understand their own lives.

A daughter travels to a foreign city in search of her father, hoping to uncover the truth behind his disappearance. A widow desperately pursues a mysterious woman who leaves flowers at her husband's grave—a quiet ritual that stirs painful doubts about her past. Roger Casement's former lover stands among the crowds at his state funeral, silently honouring a hidden life they were once forced to bury. A novelist encounters the one person who knows the truth behind his success at his book launch. Another writer receives an invitation to visit a dying stranger, a man convinced that their lives have been locked in a bitter confrontation for decades. A child dies outside a woman's home, and she finds herself powerless to prevent her garden wall from being turned into a permanent shrine of remembrance.

Dermot Bolger

Born in Dublin in 1959, Dermot Bolger is a novelist, playwright and poet, and one of Ireland's most celebrated writers. He is the author of fourteen novels, including The Journey Home, The Second Life, Tanglewood, The Lonely Sea and Sky, and The Ark of Light. In 2020, he published his first collection of short stories, The Unspeakable Secrets.

His first play, In Memory of Arthur Cleary, won the Samuel Beckett Award. His many other plays include The Ballymun Trilogy, which charts forty years of life in a Dublin working-class suburb, and more recent works such as The Last Order at the Quayside and his stage adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses, all produced by the Abbey Theatre, Ireland's national theatre.

His ninth collection of poems, Venice Suite: A Voyage through Loss, was published in 2012. He co-wrote the bestselling collaborative novels Finbar's Hotel and Ladies' Night at Finbar's Hotel, and has edited several literary anthologies, including The Picador Book of Contemporary Irish Fiction.

Bolger has served as Writer-in-Residence at Trinity College Dublin, has written extensively for major Irish newspapers, and was named "Critic of the Year" at the 2012 NNI Journalism Awards. In 2021, he was awarded the Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award, one of Ireland's most prestigious poetry honours. His tenth poetry collection, The Lives of Others, was published by New Island Books in 2022.