“This book has everything: nuns, sex, confusion, mini skirts, drink, misogyny.” — Shane McGowan
Rosita Sweeman's Fathers Come First is a coming-of-age classic set against a Dublin-city backdrop.
Elizabeth is both daring and subversive, grappling with the pressures of conforming to societal expectations in 70s Ireland — social, physical and sexual. In a world informed by a Catholic upbringing, she wonders whether her indiscretions belong in the letterbox or the confession box.
Curious, unflinching and disarmingly honest, teenager turned twenty-something Lizzie speaks to the changes and continuities in Irish society across forty years. This is a novel as relevant today as when it was first published in 1974.