CARRIE KABAK
Author & Essayist
SHIBBY MAGEE
"It's like Shibby gets up on a nettle for a sting, only to be surprised when it hurts."
Shibby Magee unfolds across two timelines, following Isabelle ‘Shibby’ Magee from her childhood in 1970s Ireland to the age of forty-five. Shibby and her identical twin, Isadorah ‘Dorah’, are abandoned by their Traveller/Mincéir mother, Vera Coffey, and left at the failing Gilligan’s Bakery in Cloonharry under the formidable rule of their bigoted grandma, Nanna Magee. There, they live alongside Benny, their emotionally distant father; Alice Duffy, the housekeeper and surrogate mother; and Moochie de Barra, Benny’s ever-present sidekick.
At forty-five, Shibby leaves her sous-chef job in Dublin to live with her motley crew of a family on the island of Burren Droma—only to impulsively marry Traveller Povey O’Brien, with consequences far darker than she could have imagined. After finally finding her old, deranged mother, she makes a devastating discovery about Benny. Can Shibby finally break the pattern of destructive relationships that has followed her through life, or is she destined to repeat the same cycle of toxicity and ruin? Throughout, Shibby’s life is colored by her sharp-edged sister Dorah, the ballast to her impulsive and romantically gullible self, and by Kitty Dooley, who embodies the fierce pride and harsh realities of Traveller life.
Against the backdrops of Gilligan’s Bakery, the caravans and campfires of Traveller life, and the windswept, craggy cliffs of Burren Droma, Shibby Magee reveals a family burdened by secrets and decades of sacrifice and shame, clerical abuse, and blackmail. Inherited trauma, identity, and the settled-Traveller divide run through a story steeped in Irish culture and place, where the dialogue crackles with Irish slang and the prose is alive with sensory detail—from fish and seaweed on the Atlantic air to the buttery scent of caraway seed cake.
In the tradition of Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, Trespasses by Louise Kennedy, The Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan, and Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín, Shibby Magee is a warm yet incisive work of literary fiction portraying a woman shaped by loss, grief, and social prejudice as she struggles toward dignity, love, and self-possession.
AN IRISH TRAGICOMEDY
Readers’ Favorite is proud to announce that SHIBBY MAGEE: An Irish Tragicomedy won the Honorable Mention Award in Cultural Fiction. The Readers’ Favorite International Book Award Contest featured thousands of contestants from over a dozen countries, ranging from new authors to New York Times bestsellers and celebrities.
"With its brilliant sense of time, place, and setting, and its depiction of prejudiced small-town attitudes towards the Traveller community and homosexuality, this is a novel examining the real meaning of family and love. Lyrical, well observed, and darkly funny, it explores the issues of cultural identity, abandonment, and self acceptance. It is guaranteed to make you laugh and cry and will definitely warm your heart. Highly recommended—especially if you've enjoyed books by Tish Delaney, Fiona Scarlett, and Donal Ryan." —Helen Towers, Borderlines Carlisle Book Festival programmer
"Carrie Kabak follows the indelible, indefatigable Shibby Magee during two crucial years in her life, one in girlhood and then another at midlife womanhood, as she struggles against prejudice, cruelty, and abandonment in her search to find her true place in an increasingly confounding world, be it in a bustling restaurant or on the road as an Irish Traveller—in an extraordinary, wily community I’d never heard of before and was delighted to encounter. Warm, wise, with dashes of wit, Kabak’s novel is just magnificent." —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of With or Without You, and Days of Wonder
