Deborah Brady

Milkman humorously yet seriously provides the reader with a glimpse into how a community acts and thinks in an authoritarian country. The characters are not named but are called middle sister or maybe-boyfriend in part to reflect the paranoia, suspicion and gossip of that world. The plot revolves around the suspicion with which middle daughter is held because she reads while walking, for example. The community watches and suspects middle girl, and applies the same lack of trust in one another. The world, representing Ireland during the troubles, is fraught, ever critical of any real or imagined transgressions, and with little happiness.