Wardrobe Department

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A01=Elaine Garvey
adulthood
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Elaine Garvey
automatic-update
Category1=Fiction
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=ANH
Category=AP
Category=ATT
Category=FA
Category=FBA
Chekhov
COP=United Kingdom
costume
Delivery_Pre-order
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
family history
female friendship
female protagonist
funeral
grief
Ireland
Irish wake
Language_English
PA=Not yet available
performing arts
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Forthcoming
softlaunch
Soho
theatre
West End theatre
women fiction

Product details

  • ISBN 9781805302360
  • Weight: 347g
  • Dimensions: 140 x 220mm
  • Publication Date: 13 Feb 2025
  • Publisher: Canongate Books
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD
AN IRISH TIMES DEBUT AUTHOR TO LOOK OUT FOR 2025
A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST DEBUT OF 2025

Mairéad works all hours in a run-down West End theatre's wardrobe department, her whole existence made up of threads and needles, running errands to mend shoes, fixing broken zips and handwashing underwear. She must also do her best to avoid groping hands backstage and the terrible bullying of the show's producer.

But, despite her skill and growing experience, half of Mairéad remains in her windy, hedge-filled home in Ireland, and the life she abandoned there. In noughties London, she has the potential to be somebody completely new - why, then, does she feel so stuck? Between the bustling side streets of Soho, and the wet grass of Leitrim and Donegal, Mairéad is caught, running from the girl she was but unable to reveal the woman she'd hoped to become.

Told with rare honesty and equal measures of warmth and bite, The Wardrobe Department is a story about reckoning with the past, finding the courage to change the present - and asking what comes next.

Elaine Garvey is from Co. Sligo, Ireland. She completed an M.Phil. in Creative Writing in Trinity College, Dublin in 2000. Her short stories have been published in the Dublin Review and Winter Papers. She has worked as a programme co-ordinator at the Stinging Fly, was awarded an agility grant for her writing and has recently been selected as a participant on a basic income scheme for artists by the Irish Department of Arts. The Wardrobe Department is her first novel, and was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year in association with Listowel Writers' Week in 2026.

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