“you wake — dry mouth, mussed hair, your body heat rising,
two eyes on one side of your face, mouth twisted
like a flounder, the bottom-feeder you have become.”
(from The First Worst Thing)
‘Wives are afraid of me now.’ From the opening line of Fallen there is a sense of danger and intimacy. In her latest and most risqué collection Audrey Molloy asks: What makes a good person? What does it mean to be a fallen woman? And can she ever redeem herself? ‘You are one side of an abyss. Everything decent, the other.’
Among an inventive repertoire of forms Fallen is laced with a series of poems that convey the thoughts and confusion of a woman in crisis. Expanding its vision to track the fallen woman through history, religion and myth Fallen offers better endings for some of the tragic heroines of novel and opera for whom Audrey Molloy speaks. While the poems mine the exquisite pain, joy and persistent guilt of an illicit love affair and expose post-separation social opprobrium at the core of this collection is the most tender of love stories. ‘And then a skylight opened for each of us.’
Read Audrey Molloy's article, 'What Does it Mean to Be a Fallen Woman' in The Irish Times (October 2025)
'The poems in Fallen, my new collection, explore in part how the early programming of “feminine ideals”, through art and literature, can perpetuate self-damning and social condemnation. The poems also attempt to reclaim some of these tragic heroines, or at the very least imagine a different ending to their stories . . . What makes a good person? Can a good person leave a spouse who is also a good person? Can a person who has chosen self over others ever redeem themselves? And should they need to? Is it a given, if they break a vow, that they are immoral? How long does a bad person need to be punished for? These are some of the questions that Fallen grapples with. But at the heart of the collection is a love story, albeit heavily laced with guilt:
Additional information
| Weight | 180 g |
|---|---|
| Choose Type | Hardback, Paperback |
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Book Information
Publication date: 1 October 2025
Details: 72pp
ISBN PBK: 978 1 91737 102 5
ISBN HBK: 978 1 91737 103 2
Cover: ‘Suspended 3’ (2014) by Chloe Early, oil on aluminium panel
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