McInerney writes an energetic, profane prose laced with the vibrant idiom of Cork street life ... There’s not much of a respite for the reader in this bleak, powerful novel. A tough gallows humor pervades, but there is little in the way of redemption or hope for McInerney’s characters. In that regard The Glorious Heresies remains unstintingly true to its own subject matter.
...[a] wonderfully offbeat voice ... McInerney’s characters aren’t what anyone would call saints, but they’re so richly drawn you have to respect the way they think and sympathize with their moral conflicts ... Not only is McInerney’s prose ripe with foul language and blasphemous curses delivered in the impenetrable local idiom, but her style is so flamboyantly colorful it can’t always be contained.
You can’t fault McInerney for lack of exuberance, though she has a tendency to treat paragraphs like pinball machines, firing off bold, extended metaphors and letting them ricochet down the page ... Such profligacy seems unnecessary when McInerney is equally capable of writing with great clarity and economy ... There is no question that McInerney has talent to burn; indeed, the book often gives the impression of her starting fires in order to reignite a plot that has run out of fuel. At its best, it finds the erstwhile Sweary Lady on bellicose form: an irrepressible volley of unrehearsed words from a brand new throat.
