Orchid and the Wasp A Novel

Praise for Orchid & the Wasp:

Shortlisted for the 2018 Butler Literary Award
Library Journal: "Best Summer Debut Novels"

"Ireland produces a new literary star at a rate of one a month, it seems; first among equals for 2018, however, has to be Caoilinn Hughes."
- Irish Echo

"A winning debut novel...Hughes, a poet, touches the prose with a comic wand... Orchid and the Wasp delivers a fantasy of competence, the kind that is in dialogue, if not always complete agreement, with morality."
- Katy Waldman, The New Yorker

"A gem of a novel about the way we live now."
- ELLE

"You won't forget Gael Foess."

"Luminous... sparkles with acuity and concision.... [Gael] is an indomitable, highly adaptable character who can navigate through tumultuous times and wildly disparate environments with ingenuity and grit."
- Los Angeles Review of Books

'This arch début novel's ... satiric impulse-toward art-world hypocrisy, late capitalism, heterosexual love-is unsparing and ambitious'
- The New Yorker

"A remarkable, propulsive debut novel ... No precis can adequately convey the novel's startling, impressionistic prose, nor its corrosive humour. Jewels of observation glitter amid the earthy gags. ... Exuberant ... it zings with energy, ambition and daring."
- The Times Literary Supplement (London)

"Caoilinn Hughes's debut novel, Orchid & the Wasp, has the fluid gait of something alive...At once exuberant and incisive, Hughes's writing escapes simple characterization while somehow remaining welcoming...This is not simply a coming of age tale, nor is it an experiment in narrative philosophy. What is it, then? I'm not sure, other than that it's something new."
- Taylor Lannamann, Tin House

'Extraordinary... This is a difficult novel to do justice to, for it is brimming with ideas, and the pace of their arrival and quality of their treatment is noteworthy... Orchid represents an exciting first step into prose for Caoilinn Hughes.'
- Oxford Review

"Hughes has created something special in Gael, who is her own woman in a way we don't see often enough in books: brave, complex, fractured, intelligent, resourceful, ruthless and unforgiving... Orchid & the Wasp is this year's Conversations with Friends...Hughes casts her unique gaze, her artistic, analytical and emotional intelligence, on ... our capitalist world and the personal, political and social ramifications implicit in our acquiescence to, or indeed, championing of, its values."
- Irish Times

"Orchid & the Wasp, by Caoilinn Hughes, is making waves because it is fiercely bright and moves like a bullet train."
- Sebastian Barry, bestselling author of Days Without End, for the Irish Times

"Orchid and the Wasp is a hugely entertaining novel full of wit, intellect and sharp observations... Akin to Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends, Orchid and the Wasp is a modern female coming-of- age story... Caoilinn Hughes is definitely one to watch."
- RTE Culture Magazine

"Not since Paul Murray's Skippy Dies have I read such an original Irish novel... Dazzling, heady fiction. Hughes is an award-winning poet and it's barely concealable. She simply dances on the page, her imagination is riotous, her flawed characters have shape and colour and sometimes heartbreaking humanity."
- Irish Independent

"Caoilinn Hughes is an award-winning poet and her background in poetry shines through Orchid & the Wasp's audacious and meticulously crafted prose. It's a mesmeric, immersive, often hilarious reading experience, driven by the force of the imagery-rich writing and the cast of distinctive characters.... Gael is a fresh and fascinating picaresque heroine - admirable, reprehensible, empowered, bisexual, containing multitudes, the kind of woman rarely depicted in fiction.... Her high-wire act is exhilarating to witness, as, throughout the novel, is Hughes's own."
- Sunday Independent

"Hugely ambitious and richly inventive."
-Irish Examiner

"Caoilinn H