The Loss of Ordinary Plenty

Jack Murphy is an angel – a suicide, doomed to walk the earth in search of redemption. Cast adrift in 1990’s Dublin he must face the demonic John Martyr, a man without compassion or pity, who is planning a massacre of the innocent.

Meanwhile Gareth Byrne, faced with a terminal illness, determines to leave this life in as dramatic and public a way as possible. Can a chance meeting with a young mother facing her own personal tragedy dissuade him from his course?

‘The Loss of Ordinary Plenty’ brings together misfits and outcasts, the loved and the unloved, blending tragedy and humour in a story about what it means to be alive when death is at your shoulder.


Steven Duggan’s work has appeared in a number of publications, including Savoy Magazine and Rattle/The Bombshelter Press. A former schoolteacher and a father of six, he lives with his family in a small coastal village outside Dublin.

""The dark, lucid prose of John Connolly meets the fantastical wit of Flann O'Brien's 'The Third Policeman'. Only an Irishman could have written it." M. Fein