Mr Lynch's Holiday

Jul 27, 2025 7:56 AM

Author:Catherine O'Flynn

Mr Lynch's Holiday

Mr Lynch's Holiday is the new comic novel by Catherine O'Flynn, the bestselling and prize-winning author of What Was Lost and The News Where You Are.

'I'm looking forward to seeing you and Laura and getting my first taste of "abroad".' Eamonn Lynch stares at the letter announcing his father's imminent arrival. His first thought: I'll make an excuse, I'll put him off. But it's too late. Laura has left, and Dermot is already here, a fresh arrival from Ireland to southern Spain. Now it's just the two of them, father and son, for two long, hot weeks.

Neither knows quite what to make of the other. But as they are swept up in the British expats' ceaseless barbecuing and bickering, they begin to discover the truth about why each left home and about the family past. At the same time they uncover a shocking, unacknowledged secret at the heart of this defiant but beleaguered community.

Mr Lynch's Holiday is the moving story of a father and son pushed together in sunny Spain. With warmth and wit it is about the clash of generations; about how families fracture and heal themselves; and about how living "abroad" can be less like a holiday and more like a life sentence.

'An awesomely talented writer' Jonathan Coe

'Delightful ... a rare love story between a father and a son' Sunday Telegraph

'Subtle, clever and thoroughly enjoyable' Sunday Mirror

'A remarkable and original writer ... tenderness, warmth, thoughtfulness and comic genius are words that are flung around a lot, but it's more than that. She flinches at nothing and is as sharp as dammit' Fay Weldon, Observer

'A flow of laugh-aloud satire ... sharp enough to rank her with Mark Haddon and Marina Lewckya' Independent on Sunday on The News Where You Are

Catherine O'Flynn was born in 1970 and raised in Birmingham, the youngest of six children. Her debut novel, What Was Lost, won the Costa First Novel Award, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and was longlisted for the Booker and Orange Prizes. Her second novel, The News Where You Are, was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and an Edgar Allen Poe Award.

Reviews

An awesomely talented writer

—— Jonathan Coe

O’Donnell makes you feel the frustration of an intelligent child who knows he's being kept in the dark … There’s loss of innocence here, but the overwhelming tone is warm and sparky; O’Donnell shows how a shattered family can remake itself, and Michael's narrative voice is delightful – observant, thoughtful, comical and thoroughly believable.

—— Kate Saunders , The Times

Lisa O’Donnell’s dazzling new novel … Like Roddy Doyle’s Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and Black Swan Green by David Mitchell, O’Donnell’s novel effectively evokes the carefree joys of adolescence as well as all of its terrors, real and imagined … O’Donnell perfectly navigates the distance between what Michael understands and what her readers do … O’Donnell’s great talent is most apparent in her depiction of the gap between Michael’s thoughts and his actions … a moving story that stakes a lasting, and disturbing, emotional claim on her readers.

—— New York Times Book Review

[A] coming-of-age novel … Closed Doors provides an engaging child’s eye view of a working-class community that is nuanced and insightful.

—— The Herald

A sweet and uplifting read that celebrates the messy, complicated business of family. Michael is a lively and endearing narrator.

—— Daily Mail

This wonderful book explores the loss of innocence through a child's eyes. I loved it.

—— Jenny Green , The Sun

Impressive … A hugely accomplished piece of storytelling.

—— Doug Johnstone , Big Issue

O'Donnell captures perfectly the distance between perception and reality in a child's view of the world.

—— Mail on Sunday

A skilfully told story of a boy’s struggle to come to terms with family secrets and their potentially terrible consequences . A sharp, witty and heartbreaking second novel from a dynamic new talent.

—— Kitty Aldridge, author of A TRICK I LEARNED FROM DEAD MEN

Sweet and sad, this is a coming-of-age story with dark secrets - and love- at its heart.

—— Karen Campbell, author of THIS IS WHERE I AM

A sensitive and sometimes heart-rending evocation of what it was like to grow up in the 1980s ... Part coming of age novel, part crime novel, Closed Doors will remind all its readers of what it was like to be a child in a world where flawed adults make all the decisions.

—— We Love This Book

Yoko Ogawa is able to give expression to the most subtle workings of human psychology in prose that is gentle yet penetrating.

—— Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Prize Winning author of A Personal Matter

Each well narrated and haunting novella, about love, obsession and dark humour, has an unpredictable twist of viciousness coupled with compassion

—— The Hindu

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