Pushkin imprint One buys ‘on point’ novel from Sarah Gilmartin
Pushkin Press imprint One has bought the rights to Sarah Gilmartin’s second novel Service, which explores #MeToo, power and sexual politics from three different perspectives in a restaurant business.
Deputy publisher Laura Macaulay acquired British Commonwealth rights from Sallyanne Sweeney at Mulcahy Sweeney Associates.
Set in a swanky Dublin restaurant in the mid-2000s, Service explores power dynamics from the point of view of a waitress, an overbearing chef and the chef’s wife. Service “charts the escalation of banal bullying into something much darker,” the synopsis states. “The three perspectives jostle with and contradict each other, revealing the deep and widespread impact of poisonous behaviour on individuals and the culture more broadly.”
“This is the novel we need right now,” said Macauley. “Sarah Gilmartin writes with extraordinary empathy, yet never looks away, and she manages to pull it all off with a lightness and humour that makes this exceptional. I’m thrilled to be publishing this perfectly constructed, moving, and absolutely on point novel.”
Gilmartin is a writer and arts journalists who reviews fiction for the Irish Times. Her short stories have been published in the Dublin Review, New Irish Writing and shortlisted for the RTÉ Francis MacManus Short Story Award. Her story The Wife won the 2020 Máirtín Crawford Award at the Belfast Book Festival.
Her debut novel, Dinner Party (Pushkin One), was shortlisted for best newcomer at the Irish Book Awards and the Kate O’Brien Award 2022.
“I’m excited to be working with the excellent team at Pushkin again for this new novel,” said Gilmartin. “To see their enthusiasm has been really gratifying as the book is a good few years in the making, a story of the frenetic Irish restaurant world that I hope will resonate with readers everywhere.”
