THE GOSPEL OF ORLA

EOGHAN WALLS is a Northern Irish poet from Derry. He has lived and worked in Ireland, Britain, Germany and Rwanda. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 2006, and his poetry has been shortlisted for multiple international awards, including the Bridport Prize, the Manchester Poetry Prize and the Piggott Prize. He has published the first major translation of Heidegger’s poetical works and currently teaches Creative Writing at Lancaster University. The Gospel of Orla is his debut novel. Follow him on Twitter at @eoghanwalls.

“[The Gospel of Orla] is consistently surprising, evocative, almost impossible to put down, and gloriously original work.” —Alexander Moran, ALA Booklist

“The Gospel of Orla is written with immense control and precision so that the voice of the protagonist emerges as alive, individual and memorable. Eoghan Walls manages to make every single emotion Orla feels—every thought, response and action—utterly convincing and fresh and original.” —Colm Tóibín, author of The Magician

“In his debut novel, poet Eoghan Walls imagines the intersection of the material and the mystic when a grieving adolescent stumbles upon a struggling savior. Walls provides an authentic and page-turning narrative from the perspective of his restless and ever-beguiling protagonist. As the troubled teenager ricochets between circus illusion and divine touch, she and the reader are beckoned to ponder where magic ends and miracles begin.” —Kia Corthron, author of Moon and the Mars

“The Gospel of Orla is an astonishing feat of characterisation and storytelling. The prose is both earthy and sparkling and the story—equal parts bravado and vulnerability—is told with both wit and tenderness. Everyone should read this.” —Jenn Ashworth, author of Ghosted

“Eoghan Walls writes with humour, inventiveness and irreverence in The Gospel of Orla. Its wholly convincing adolescent lead is neither hero, anti-hero, nor villain. The people she encounters are neither saints nor sinners, however we might mistake them for the same. This novel is exactly the sort of searching, truth-troubling story that Orla needs to read, that would surely stay with her.” —Caoilinn Hughes, author of The Wild Laughter and Orchid & the Wasp

“It is only January, and already I know this book will be in my top ten of the year. I would follow Orla and Jesus anywhere. This is the kind of gospel I can get behind.” —Bex Frankeberger, Books Are Magic, Brooklyn NY

“Walls infuses the book with such kinetic energy and assuredness that you wouldn’t think this is his debut. And Orla is such a sympathetic and magnetic character, the book is effortless to read despite the quite heavy themes.” —Bennard Fajardo, Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC

“Orla is grieving the lost of her mother when she attempts to leave her father and baby sister behind to go to Ireland. Her first attempt fails miserably. A coming-of-age novel that is witty, bold and lyrical; it reminds us what it means to be human.” —Shannon Alden, Literati Books, Ann Arbor, Michigan

1. How might this book be considered an examination of immigration? 

2. Orla is forced to consider different ideas about the afterlife. What version of the afterlife could be acceptable to a fourteen-year-old girl? What concept of the afterlife would you accept? 

3. What resources—personal, material, societal—would Jesus need to make his return to humanity a success? What could “success” possibly mean here? 

4. Would you forgive Orla, if she was your daughter? 

5. Why would anyone want an elephant? 

6. Might this book be considered sacrilegious, or as a genuine questioning of the implications of resurrection?