A Beautiful Loan
Mary Costello
Available as Hardback, Paperback, eBook
A heart-wrenching, sweeping new novel following a woman’s life and relationships from the winner of Irish Book of the Year
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2026 SO FAR
My name is Anna, and for some time now, I have been trying to account for certain events in my life – my adult life, that is – which, from this vantage point of forty-five years, I often find baffling …
In 1985 Dublin, nineteen-year-old Anna Hughes is in thrall to Peter Gallagher, an older, worldly man. Anna is introverted and naïve, and Peter’s experience, wide circle of friends and thirst for adventure captivate her. Her obsessive longing for him leads to marriage and, eventually, a crushing betrayal.
As Anna’s life becomes less predictable, she uncovers deeper layers of herself. Her journey gives an intimate portrait of a woman embracing herself as she is, claiming the life she yearns for.
“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”
John Self
financial Times
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”A Beautiful Loan is a beautiful novel; Mary Costello guides her reader through a cloud of emotional turmoil in fine, controlled sentences. We must hope it delivers her the belated recognition she so richly deserves”
Lucy Thynne
times Literary Supplement
“Many authors describe the writer’s principal duty as one of attention: to the world around us, in all its beauty and ugliness. In a sense, this is also a moral act. Costello does this in all her work. That we as readers might be surprised by the significance and profundity she renders to each and every life is a measure of her depth of attention, and perhaps why 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”
Michael Amherst
guardian
”A Beautiful Loan is a quietly devastating psychological novel about a woman’s search for love, meaning and selfhood… . Told in Anna’s first-person voice and in the present tense, the novel offers an intimate portrait of her inner and outer worlds. On the surface, all seems calm as she recounts her journey from circumspect young teacher to mature woman, yet an undercurrent of unease runs throughout, bubbling up in unsettling moments of insight that give the writing subtle intensity”
sunday Independent Review
”A Beautiful Loan is one of the most beautiful and original novels I have read in years. Mary Costello is an extraordinary talent, possessing a gift for capturing characters with smart intricacy. Anna’s inner life is so richly rendered that the emotional intensity of the book felt very visceral; an intimate portrait of an Irish woman’s journey delivered with refined power”
Elaine Feeney
Mary Costello
Mary Costello lives in Galway. Her short story collection, The China Factory (2012), was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award and shortlisted for an Irish Book Award. Her first novel, Academy Street (2014), won the Irish Novel of the Year Award at the Irish Book Awards and was named overall Irish Book of the Year. It was serialised on BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, the Costa First Novel Prize, the EU Prize for Literature and the Prix Littéraire des Ambassadeurs de la Francophonie en Irlande, and has been translated into several languages. Her critically acclaimed second novel, The River Capture (2019) was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards, the Kerry Novel of the Year and the Dalkey Novel Award. Her second short story collection, Barcelona (2024) was an Irish Times Bestseller.