From the author of A Ghost in the Throat, a time-traversing, form-defying, genre-morphing story of a reader unraveling the legacies of a fabled Irish asylum and the women who haunt its halls.
Ni Ghriofa has created a fascinating literary territory that is entirely her own. In her new book, Said the Dead, a lyric fusion of biography, ghost story, memoir and poetry, she conjures fuller lives for several women named in the casebooks of a defunct asylum ... Its stirring aliveness comes from Ni Ghriofa’s writing, the compressed lyricism and depth of feeling she brings to every scene ... Extraordinary ... Vivid.
An intimately researched but also wildly imaginative study of lives (mostly female) lived and often concluded during the hospital’s first 70 years or so ... [An] extraordinary formal and ethical force.
Extraordinary stories ... Despite the urgency and power of the stories, and the overarching structure of Lucia’s time, what Said the Dead lacks in comparison to A Ghost in the Throat is engagement with the author’s own life ... Interesting.
