The Carnival at Bray

The Carnival at Bray is a young adult novel by American writer Jessie Ann Foley. In 2015, it was named an Honor Book for the American Library Association’s Michael L. Printz Award, which recognizes literary excellence. That same year, the ALA’s young adult division selected it as one of the ten best works of fiction for young adults and also shortlisted it for the William C. Morris Award, given to debut young adult novels. The manuscript won several contests before publication. It was first submitted through a contest held by Elephant Rock Books, which then published it as the small independent press’s first young adult title. An earlier version of the manuscript had also won the Chicago Reader’s annual fiction contest.

The story follows Maggie, a teenager born in Chicago, who has just moved to Bray, a town in County Wicklow, Ireland, just south of Dublin. Her relationship with her mother is strained. After separating from Maggie’s father, her mother had a series of short relationships before recently marrying an Irishman. The novel tracks Maggie’s struggle to fit in at school and in Irish social life, her bond with an older man who becomes a surrogate grandfather, the death of a beloved uncle, and her escapes from home to Dublin and Rome—all tied to her passion for the band Nirvana. These threads lead to two major crises.

Kirkus Reviews gave the book a starred review, noting that the narrative “subtly and carefully interweaves peer and family drama…with the highs and lows of the grunge music scene, from the transformative glory of a Nirvana concert to the outpouring of grief around the death of Kurt Cobain.” The Chicago Reader included *The Carnival at Bray* on its list of favorite books of 2014, calling it “a lovely coming-of-age story set on the northwest side and in Dublin, which got its start five years ago as the winner of our annual fiction contest.” It was also a finalist for the 2015 Chicago Writers Association Traditional Fiction Book of the Year.

In 2022, the novel was one of 52 books banned by the Alpine School District in Utah, following the state’s passage of H.B. 374, the “Sensitive Materials In Schools” law.