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The Roundtable

"The Rachel Incident" by Caroline O'Donoghue

By Joe Donahue
Published August 11, 2023 at 11:34 AM EDT
Book cover for "The Rachel Incident" by Caroline O'Donoghue
Knopf
/
Provided

If you are a regular listener to this program…or the Book Show…you know Joe has a soft spot for the Irish novel. Months ago, he began hearing about this new book taking Ireland by storm. It has now landed in the US. Caroline O’Donoghue’s very funny novel, "The Rachel Incident," is about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three.

Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever.

O’Donoghue says one of the things she wanted to do is to explore how friendships develop differently now as compared to a few generations ago.

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The Roundtable friendshipirelandnovelcaroline o'donoghue
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Joe Donahue
Joe talks to people on the radio for a living. In addition to countless impressive human "gets" - he has talked to a lot of Muppets. Joe grew up in Philadelphia, has been on the area airwaves for more than 25 years and currently lives in Washington County, NY with his wife, Kelly, and their dog, Brady. And yes, he reads every single book.
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