!['The Queen of Dirt Island' captures the bond between women in an Irish family - podcast episode cover](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2023/11/21/48-botd-saturday---edited-image_sq-415a197aa52d22741f69e3f48facc61d1abee40b.jpg?s=3000&c=66&f=jpg)
Episode description
Donal Ryan's novel, The Queen of Dirt Island, centers its women characters. He tells NPR's Mary Louise Kelly that making the men peripheral wasn't his goal – "it just kind of happened." In today's episode, he explains how a childhood spent listening to his grandmother, sister and neighbors in his mom's kitchen inspired the voices in the book, and why he wrote with a strict word count in mind for each chapter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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