Winner of the John McGahern Prize for Fiction 2025A Guardian ‘Best Fiction of 2024’ Selection‘Captured in careful, accurate detail … a novel of concealment and shocking revelation.Fitzgerald has managed to create an unforgettable heroine and a dark picture of the world around her.’ Colm Tóibín‘Devastating’ Anne Enright‘A gifted writer’ Irish Times---Jean Kennedy is a gentle, perceptive girl growing up in a very strange world: suburban Dublin in the 1970s and '80s.In the company of her mother, her Aunty Ida, and her little brother Baby John F., Jean experiences love and joy.But home is not a safe place, and Jean is unequal and unprotected.When she speaks just one small part of the truth, she must quickly learn to navigate the dangers and possibilities of a world she scarcely understands. Jean’s hypnotic, unsparing and ultimately hopeful voice captures the dreams and terrors of girlhood in a brutally hypocritical world, and offers glimpses of a better life.Through it all, Jean’s voice pulsates with insight and passion.Girl in the Making is a deeply moving, propulsive coming-of-age story from a major new talent. -----‘Beautiful’ Louise Nealon'Magnificent' Aingeala Flannery'Masterful' Kathleen MacMahon‘Deeply moving and beautifully written … Fitzgerald’s prose has a crispness and a depth that surprises and delights’ Irish Times‘Tender and perceptive … simply unforgettable’ Irish Examiner'Reminiscent of the work of Tessa Hadley and Elena Ferrante' Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett'Devastating and superb' Irish Independent