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HarperCollins Ireland has snapped up a "funny and heart-warming" novel from Damien Owens about family ties and finding romance.
Publisher Conor Nagle bought world all language rights for Duffy and Son from Faith O’Grady at the Lisa Richards Agency. It will be published on 31st March 2022.
The synopsis says: "Eugene Duffy is turning 70 soon. For decades, he has lived in good-natured bachelor harmony with his son, Jim, running their hardware shop in the local town and enjoying the same fish and chip supper every Friday night. But Jim is turning 40 soon, and Eugene is starting to worry about his son. He decides to help by finding Jim a wife, but in the process, he realises that his fears for his own future are what’s really keeping him up at night."
Owens said: "Writers often say that their novels are like their children and they couldn’t possibly prefer one to another. I say to hell with that. Duffy and Son is my favourite of my books so far and I’m excited to have it published by HarperCollins Ireland. There’s no hiding from your subconscious and I suppose this story of an older man pondering his life choices arose from my own voyage into the depths of middle age. There comes a point where you start reflecting, and that can be a dangerous thing. My theory is that when it’s happening to someone else, it can also be funny and affecting. Duffy and Son was a lot of fun to write, and I hope readers of every age will find something in it that tickles them."
Nagle added: "Damien is an outrageously gifted comic novelist, expert at charting those uncertain corners of the everyday, where small personal dramas reveal themselves in unexpected ways. Duffy and Son is his finest work to date, and in Eugene Duffy he has unearthed a protagonist for the ages – a man whose struggles to place himself in the world are every bit as moving and universal as they are hilarious."