Nick Laird

Life
1975- ; b. Cookstown, Co. Tyrone; ed. Cambridge Univ. (grad. in English); lived in Boston, Warsaw and London; issued To a Fault (2005), a poetry collection, winner of the Rooney Prize; Utterly Monkey (2005), a novel about lawyers migrating from N. Ireland to Britain who find their loyalty to the UK utterly irrelevant to mainlanders; winner of the Betty Trask Prize, 2005; also issued To a Fault (2005), a highly-fêted first poetry collection, winning the Rooney Prize, the Aldeburgh Prize, the Ireland Chair of Poetry Prize, and the Rupert and Eithne Strong Award at Dún Laoghaire Annual “Poetry Now” Fest., 2006, followed by On Purpose (2007), another collection; issued Glover’s Mistake (2008); living in Rome in 2007 and America in 2008.

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Works
Poetry, To a Fault (London: Faber & Faber 2005), 54pp.; On Purpose (London: Faber & Faber 2007), 65pp. Fiction, Utterly Monkey (London: Fourth Estate 2005), 344pp.; Glover’s Mistake (London: Fourth Estate 2008), 254pp.

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Criticism
Michael Parker, ‘“Neither Here Nor There”: New Generation Northern Irish Poets (Sinead Morrissey and Nick Laird)’, in Irish Literature Since 1990: Diverse Voices, ed. Scott Brewster & Michael Parker (Manchester UP 2009) [Chap. 8].

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Notes
Glover’s Mistake (2008): Two bachelors are at a loose end when their world is turned topsy-turvy by the arrival of an older, attractive woman. A story of obsession and desire set in the cultural wasteland of modern society, Glover’s Mistake casts a satirical eye on modern Britain where the obsessions with style, appearance and conspicuous wealth leave people the poorer emotionally. Biting humour and strong emotions mark the spiral of the as the three protagonists’ relationship with each other towards a not very happy ending. (See Books Ireland, May 2009, p.123.)

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