Exciting Times (2020)

Exciting Times is a novel by Irish author Naoise Dolan. It was released in the United Kingdom on 12 April 2020 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, and later that summer in the United States. The book is Dolan's debut novel, an intimate exploration of a millennial teacher in Hong Kong who becomes entangled in a love triangle with a male banker and a female lawyer.

Background and synopsis

Dolan began writing Exciting Times in 2017, when she was living in Hong Kong. She completed writing the novel in five months. An early excerpt was published in The Stinging Fly. The novel received critical acclaim, and was often likened to the work of Sally Rooney, a fellow Trinity College Dublin graduate.

Publication

Exciting Times was published in the United Kingdom by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on 12 April 2020. It was released in the United States on 2 June 2020, by HarperCollins.

Reception

The New York Times described it at as a novel where "jealousy and obsession, love and late capitalism, sex and the internet all come whirling together in a wry and bracing tale of class and privilege." Kirkus Reviews praised it as a "refreshingly wry and insightful debut." The Irish Times declared, "Exciting Times, which was acquired in a seven-way bidding war, more than lives up to the hype … It teems with insight around class, race, language and sexuality. Likely to fill the Sally-Rooney-shaped hole in many readers' lives."

Awards and prizes

Exciting Times was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, Dylan Thomas Prize, and Desmond Elliott Prize, and shortlisted for the Irish Book Award, Dalkey Literary Award for Emerging Writer and Waterstones Book of the Year. Dolan was also shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award in 2020.

Adaptation

In May 2020 it was announced that Exciting Times had been optioned for a US television series by Black Bear Pictures, and in August 2021 it was revealed that Cooper Raiff would adapt with Phoebe Dynevor to star in the adaptation and act as executive producer. The series will be produced by Amazon Studios.