One Dublin One Book: Snowflake - Louise Nealon in Conversation with Declan Toohey

Join us in Maynooth Community Library for a special talk with Kildare authors Louise Nealon and Declan Toohey, who will chat about Louise's debut novel Snowflake which was selected as 2024's One Dublin One Book. This is a Dublin City Council initiative, led by Dublin City Libraries, which encourages everyone to read a book connected with the capital city during the month of April every year. Tickets for this event are limited so booking is essential.

In Snowflake, eighteen-year-old Debbie White lives on a dairy farm with her mother, Maeve, and her uncle, Billy. Billy sleeps out in a caravan in the garden with a bottle of whiskey and the stars overhead for company. Maeve spends her days recording her dreams which she believes to be prophecies. This world is Debbie’s normal, but she is about to step into life as a student at Trinity College Dublin. As she navigates between sophisticated new friends and the family bubble, things begin to unravel. Maeve’s eccentricity tilts into something darker, while Billy’s drinking gets worse. Debbie struggles to cope with the weirdest, most difficult parts of herself, her family and her small life. But the fierce love of the White family is never in doubt, and Debbie discovers that even the oddest of families are places of safety. A startling, honest, laugh and cry novel about growing up and leaving home, only to find that you’ve taken it with you, Snowflake is a novel for a generation, and for everyone who’s taken those first, terrifying steps towards adulthood. Winner of Newcomer of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards 2021.

Louise Nealon is a writer from County Kildare. She has a degree in English literature from Trinity College Dublin and a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Queen’s University Belfast. In 2017, she won the Cork International Short Story Competition. Her debut novel, Snowflake was released in May 2021, and won Newcomer of the Year at the An Post Book Awards. Snowflake has been translated into several languages including German, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Croatian, Slovakian and Chinese. Her short story ‘What Feminism Is,’ is currently being adapted into a short film by Pure Divilment Pictures. Louise is currently working on her second novel.

Declan Toohey was born in Scotland and grew up in Kilcock, County Kildare. His work has appeared in Channel, the Irish Times and the Irish Independent, among other outlets. An MFA graduate of University College Dublin, he is the recipient of an Agility Award and a Literature Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland. Perpetual Comedown is his first novel.