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Beauty and Toughness
Splenditude follows a literary-minded woman coping with mental illness and looking for love and a fulfilling life in 1990s Chicago. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Beginning the novel at an Irish wedding highlights Deirdre Collins’ ethnic and religious roots. Chicago is introduced in its beauty and toughness, foreshadowing that Deirdre’s expectations of a traditional trajectory for her life will be upended.
Did you plan the tone and direction of the novel before writing, or did it come out organically as you were writing?
I outlined the novel before I started to write it, using a Save the Cat format as a general guideline. Some plot changes were made during the writing, but I am more of a planner than a pantser.
There was a lot of time spent crafting the character traits in this novel. What was the most important factor for you to get right in your characters?
I wanted Deirdre Collins, the protagonist, to change from an unreliable narrator to a reliable narrator as she moved toward the positive. I also wanted to show Max Fletcher’s humanity in spite of his troubles and missteps.
Can we look forward to more work from you soon? What are you currently working on?
I am working on a short story collection which will be published by High Frequency Press next year, and a novel about children and gun violence slated for 2027.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
Splenditude
Eileen T. Lynch’s Splenditude tells the story of Deirdre Collins, a sensitive, literary-minded woman navigating love, mental illness, and the longing for a fuller life in 1990s Chicago. The novel traces her downward spiral into mania and depression, her struggle to find meaning, and her slow, painful climb back toward stability and purpose. Anchored by her deep interior life and longing to be a writer, Deirdre’s story unfolds against a vivid Chicago backdrop, with its smoky bars, biting winds, and old neighborhoods filled with ghosts and grit.
Lynch’s prose is rich and layered without being heavy. Her writing dances between lyrical and blunt, often in the same paragraph. I was struck by how intimately she renders Deirdre’s mind. Its sharpness, its fragility, its longing. The emotional rhythm felt honest. There are no neat bows here, no characters who say just the right thing. People disappoint and disappear. Love drips in awkward silences and backhanded compliments. I loved that. I also loved the humor tucked into the darkness, the literary references like secret handshakes, and the way Lynch pulls Chicago off the page like steam from a manhole.
There were a few moments when I found myself hoping for a slightly quicker pace or a smoother shift between scenes. The ending felt more like a gentle exhale than a grand finale, which may have been exactly the intention; life rarely ties itself up neatly. Still, that’s a small note in a book that, overall, truly stayed with me and moved me in ways I didn’t see coming. I found myself underlining sentences, re-reading passages, and pausing just to sit with what Lynch had unearthed.
Splenditude is a book for anyone who’s ever felt too much, thought too deeply, or tried to crawl their way out of a dark place with only stories and hope as their tools. It’s for readers who savor emotional honesty, who can live without tidy arcs, and who believe beauty and brokenness often walk hand in hand.
Pages: 234 | ISBN : 978-1962931199
LITERARY TITAN 