Debut novel by writer Jessamine O’Connor launched
'Somewhere' by Jessamine O’Connor follows main character Clodagh’s attempt to piece her life back together after a break-up.
The debut novel by writer Jessamine O’Connor, ‘Somewhere’, was launched last week at the Liber Bookshop in Sligo.
Jessamine, who, lives on the Sligo-Roscommon border, has won several awards, including the Ireland Chair of Poetry Travel Award in 2025 and the Dermot Healy Award for Fiction and Poetry.
Author and ATU lecturer Elske Rahill praised Jessamine’s talent, and the importance of her debut novel, which was described by writer Neil Hegarty as “kaleidoscopic and impressive.” The novel follows main character Clodagh’s attempt to piece her life back together after a break-up and trying to escape her demons.
Clodagh finds herself adrift after leaving her partner Seamus. Navigating addiction, the harsh realities of a housing crisis, and relationships pushed to the brink, this is a story of her attempts to reconnect with herself, and those closest to her, in a gritty, vividly rendered contemporary Dublin.
Weaving from place to place and person to person – past friends, fellow users and her worried mother Sylvia – Clodagh struggles to fully understand herself, or the city she calls home. Urban isolation, the trials of modern life and the fleeting beauty found in Dublin’s marble haunts every scene of this novel.
‘Somewhere’ has been described as a raw and intimate portrait of a woman balancing on the edge of survival, seeking meaning and love amid isolation and addiction.
