Breakfast The Night Before

Description

The Irish horse dealer’s sparkling memoir — a vanishing world, lovingly preserved. Marjorie Quarton grew up with horses and became, at a young age, a horse dealer: a rare profession for a woman in rural Ireland. Breakfast The Night Before, first published in 1988, is her memoir of that life — a personal view of Irish rural living from the Economic War of the 1930s through the farming booms and busts that followed.

Written with what reviewers call rare brio and an eye for character and idiosyncrasy, Quarton — better known as a novelist — documents country people and their customs, eccentric neighbors, fairs and markets: a whole world, remembered before it fades. Her portraits of horse fairs and market days are pure joy — you can smell the straw and hear the dealing.

Delightful and evocative. For Ireland lovers and anyone who treasures rural memoir at its best.

An Irish horse dealer’s sparkling memoir

Marjorie Quarton grew up with horses — and at a young age became a horse dealer, a rare profession for a woman in rural Ireland. Breakfast The Night Before, first published in 1988, is her sparkling memoir of that life: a personal view of Irish rural living from the Economic War of the 1930s through the farming boom and recession that followed.

With what reviewers call “rare brio and eye for character, incident and idiosyncrasy,” Quarton — better known as a novelist — lovingly documents a vanishing world: country people and their customs, eccentric neighbors, the fairs and markets where deals were struck on a handshake, and the horses she learned to judge at a glance. Funny, observant, and steeped in Irish wit, it’s a memoir that reads like a long evening of stories told by a master storyteller.

You’ll love this if you

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• Adore Ireland and its rural traditions.
• Love memoirs full of character and humor.
• Are a horse lover or equestrian at heart.

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A warm, witty window into an Ireland that has all but disappeared.