By Ralph Cusack
The Ralph Cusack bundle will include Cadenza and A Hyphenated Childhood. Read Cusack's pioneer autofiction alongside his until-now unpublished memoir, together painting a lush portrait of life and love in 20th-century Ireland. See below for more details on each.
About Cadenza
Paperback: 9781628976670
Publication Date: September 22nd, 2026
A pioneering work of autofiction, Ralph Cusack’s Cadenza tackles time and memory, life and death “with an Anglo-Irish arrogance worthy of Beckett.” (Gilbert Sorrentino)
‘It’s just like this: I don’t want to go home and I can’t stand Dublin nor any place between the two of them either or at all...’
After a harrowing trip to the dentist, Desmond, the narrator of Ralph Cusack’s Cadenza, boards a train, locks himself in cabin 304D, and decides to take up residence indefinitely. Between room service sandwiches and whiskey, he sifts through his faulty memories of childhood, family, friends, and past lovers.
Cusack’s fleet-footed prose carries us lightly from one vignette to the next, from gorgeous descriptions of Irish landscapes to hilarious character sketches and erotic incidents worthy of a screwball comedy. Interwoven temporalities fight for our attention in the second-ever title to be published by Dalkey Archive Press, written—as Gilbert Sorrentino says—“with an Anglo-Irish arrogance worthy of Beckett.” Dismissed as an autobiography when first published, Cadenza is a pioneering work of Irish autofiction. Toeing the line between what is real and imagined, memories and wish-fulfillments, Cusack's stream of consciousness prose begs to be followed to the very last page.
About A Hyphenated Childhood
Paperback: 9781628976694
Publication Date: September 22nd, 2026
“I shall begin well before the beginning. And end after the end. That is how it should be. And most of it will be lies, fabrications, inexactitudes, approximations, near misses, botched hits...”
Ralph Cusack published only one novel in his lifetime: Cadenza, a meandering, autofictional journey through one man’s memory often compared to the work of Joyce and Beckett. A Hyphenated Childhood, Cusack’s previously unpublished and unfinished memoir, paints a rich portrait of the young life that influenced that novel. In charismatic, evocative prose, Cusack imagines the plight of his mother’s pregnancy, unfolds dreamlike descriptions of the foggy hills of the countryside where he grew up, reflects upon the aftermath of the fight for Irish independence, and recalls summiting Mount Vesuvius on a family trip to Italy.
Though unfinished—hyphenated—this portrait of an early twentieth-century Irish childhood stands as a remarkable tribute to the talent of one of the first writers to ever be published by Dalkey Archive Press.
Biographical Note
Ralph Cusack (1912-1965) was born in Dublin. As a young boy he studied under Evelyn Waugh. He trained as a painter and in 1943 he was a founder member of the committee of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art. He settled in the south of France to grow flowers for the manufacture of perfume. Cadenza, originally published in 1958 and published by Dalkey Archive Press in 1984 was his first and only novel.