The Glorious Heresies Summary
Lisa McInerney

The Glorious Heresies Overview

Lisa McInerney’s debut novel, The Glorious Heresies, is a bildungsroman that follows six major characters through five years of their interwoven lives in Cork, Ireland. As the young Ryan Cusack navigates Cork’s underground drug market and his fraught relationships with his girlfriend and family, Tony, Ryan’s alcoholic father, finds himself drawn back into the criminal world when Jimmy Phelan, a drug lord, coerces Tony into cleaning up a murder committed by Maureen, Jimmy’s mother. Georgie, a prostitute seeking redemption, soon finds herself tangled in this web as she searches for her boyfriend, the murdered man, and approaches Tara Duane, Tony’s neighbor, for help. As these six characters grow and their stories become more interdependent, McInerney explores how each character and their relationships relate to parenthood, religion, duality, corruption, and the possibility of redemption.