This is Anna’s story.
In Dublin in 1985, nineteen-year-old Anna Hughes is in thrall to Peter Gallagher, an older, worldly man. Anna is introverted and naive, and Peter’s experience, wide circle of friends and thirst for adventure captivate her. Her obsessive yearning for him leads to marriage and, eventually, a crushing betrayal.
When Anna meets a kind-hearted Algerian man, she quickly falls in love with him. Life with Karim offers stability and renewed hope and Anna begins to uncover deeper layers of herself.
Unfolding over twenty-five years, this is a profound novel about the loss of innocence, the price of love, and the risks of seeking salvation in others. A Beautiful Loan tells a powerful story about longing, survival and the unpredictable road to discovery of the self.
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andA Beautiful Loan
‘A book that grabs the reader from page one.’
‘Costello is a writer of rare and exquisite sensitivity – intimate, piercing, death-haunted – with sentences that can turn on a pin into vastness.’
‘Brings to mind the elegance of Colm Tóibín and the insight of Alice Munro.’
‘Mary Costello has a genius for taking ordinary, unheralded lives and discovering within them the disquiet, the disillusionment, concealed just below the surface.’
‘Costello’s writing has the kind of urgency that the great problems demand.’
‘I loved this quiet story, which deftly illumines the perils of absolutism in love and faith.’
‘Grounded, fully charged and realistic…’
‘There is no greater chronicler of the inner life at this moment. As artificial intelligence and big tech force an increasingly diminished definition upon us of what it means to be human, this novel reminds us that we are so much more.’
‘A subtle, unsettling and deeply humane novel that lingers long after the final page.’
‘At times I was breathless with the intensity of this novel.’
‘Like a beautiful piece of music… I am filled with admiration for Mary Costello.’
‘Mary Costello’s A Beautiful Loan creates a gripping and unsparing portrait of Anna Hughes, whose longing to find ‘safety and oneness,’ and to submit to love, deepens as both inner and outer worlds close in. This unsettling novel opened before me like a Rorschach test, troubling all my interpretations.’
‘This beautiful book has a hurrying heartbeat like a drum, hurrying us toward something we can’t bear to learn. Mary Costello’s writing is rich in knowing, in yearning, in grief, in a deep understanding of the heart.’
‘An exceptional, compulsive novel of love, loss, and courage. Told in poetic, clear-eyed prose, A Beautiful Loan is heartbreaking but unsentimental, and easily Mary Costello’s best work yet.’
‘Bubbling over with introspection and Anna’s philosophical, literary-laden musings, this is a novel about finding oneself… a fascinating character study of a woman quietly learning to defy expectations.’
‘Costello is one of Ireland’s greatest writers … Her prose is precise and focused and, like a stiletto blade, sinks deep … This is a big book in a small package, about one woman’s growth.’
