It centres around the impulsive Tony Ward, who has returned to his home of Lucan in west Dublin after five years spent on the run from justice for his murder of a man in a gang feud.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Back home, Tony is taken under the wing of Darren \u2018Flute\u2019 Walsh, the right-hand man of major gang boss Aengus Lavelle. Together, the two act as enforcers, collecting drug debts and carrying out their boss\u2019s wishes \u2013 all the while something brews between them.<\/p>\n
But the gravity of their world of crime lands when Tony and Darren are tasked with killing a clumsy drug dealer.<\/p>\n
The Booker panel described the novel as \u201ca mouthy, ballsy and bracingly unsentimental portrait of West Dublin gangland, set well off the beaten track of the city\u2019s usual literary landmarks\u201d. White\u2019s style of dialogue was labelled \u201cracy and real\u201d, and his use of description noted as \u201cinventive and classically grounded\u201d.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s high praise for any author, but as a debutant, it lends even more meaning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The novel is set within White\u2019s own locale. He spent his formative years in Co Cavan before he and his mother returned to live with his grandparents in his mother\u2019s native Lucan when he was 17.<\/p>\n
Reading and writing were always the things he was most drawn to, and All Them Dogs began its life as a short story written during the final year of his undergraduate degree.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a short story, it wasn\u2019t that short \u2013 it spanned 10,000 words, and \u201cit was bursting at the seams already\u201d, White told The Journal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He entered into an MFA at University College Dublin with the story and spent the one-year programme developing it further, under the tutelage of his dissertation supervisor, the acclaimed author Anne Enright.<\/p>\n
The submission of his dissertation left him with the first 50,000 words of a novel \u2013 \u201cbut it wasn\u2019t the first 50,000 words of this novel\u201d, he said. \u201cI went back to square one and rewrote it over the course of six or seven months.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the novel was ready to be sent out to publishing houses, the first offer came within a week, and it ended up sparking a six-way auction. \u201cIt was a surprise,\u201d White said. \u201cThat was an exciting time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the novel was acquired by John Murray Press, which published the work of literary greats Jane Austen, Arthur Conan Doyle and Lord Byron, among countless others.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although the book was received well critically, White said it sold \u201cmodestly well in its first couple of weeks, and then like a lot of books, it sort of tapered off. It\u2019s only now with the wind of the nomination \u2013 that\u2019s a massive edge to have over the past few months.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786899556_80_.png\")
\n Chair of the Booker Prize judges Mary Beard with the Booker Prize 2026 longlist, photographed at Fortnum & Mason in London \u00a9 Neo Gilder for Booker Prize Foundation<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Neo Gilder for Booker Prize Foundation\n<\/p>\n