Announcing a major new voice, The End of World is a Cul de Sac is the debut short story collection from the twice shortlisted Sunday Times Audible Short Story Prize writer Louise Kennedy
Louise Kennedy grew up in Holywood, Co. Down. Her short stories have appeared in journals including The Stinging Fly, The Tangerine, Banshee, Wasifiri and Ambit and she has written for the Guardian, Irish Times, BBC Radio 4 and RTE Radio 1. Her work has won prizes and she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award in both 2019 and 2020. Before starting her writing career, she spent nearly thirty years working as a chef. She lives in Sligo with her husband and two children.
[A] dazzling, heartbreaking debut collection . . .With their
sensitivity to people’s vulnerabilities and failings, and their
sharpness of imagery, these fifteen taut tales recall Annie Proulx
at her best: salty, wise, droll and keen to share the lessons of a
lifetime
*Guardian*
Gritty, bitter, hard-won, the fifteen stories in this first
collection feel a world away from the seeming solipsism of the
younger generation of female Irish writers who are conquering the
literary world … Kennedy’s voice, and her unforgiving gaze, are
electric
*Sunday Times*
To carve such gilded stories as these from such fathomless gorges
of despair would be an accomplishment for an old master, let alone
for a relative newbie. Yet Kennedy’s spritz of humour, as black as
the holes these women are in, elevates her stories from downbeat to
transcendent . . . [A] marvellous collection
*Independent*
Like fifteen novels squeezed between two covers, ready to blow your
mind. The only other writer I can think of who packs this much
moving, terrible life into each story is Alice Munro
*Emma Donoghue*
I am haunted by these unforgettable short stories and believed
every single line of every one of them. Louise Kennedy is a very
major talent
*Irish Times*
[A] dark, funny, brilliantly downbeat Irish debut. Bitterness,
beauty and a caustic wit colour Kennedy’s stories, as the past
makes itself unforgettably present in the lives of her vividly
drawn characters
*Daily Mail*
Masterful . . . [Kennedy] can make you laugh and wince all at once
. . . A writer very much in control of her craft
*Irish Independent*
I love Kennedy’s vividly conjured reality. Her prose is so alive, I
am surprised that the book stays shut when you close it. These
stories breathe, talk, kick-up: they have a pulse
*Anne Enright*
Darkly funny, beautifully crafted, intense - this is an outstanding
first collection from a natural story writer
*Kevin Barry*
These stories are devastating, deadly funny, hauntingly
recognisable, wise, brutal, lucent and gloriously refreshing.
Kennedy has brought an army of complex, contradictory, haywire
women into Irish literature. Prepare to be wrecked.
*Caoilinn Hughes*
Louise Kennedy is a wonderful writer: her characterization is
compelling, her style a stimulating mix of the plainspoken and
luminous, and her sense of place assured. In The End of the World
is a Cul-De-Sac, she has produced a remarkable collection of short
stories.
*Nick Laird*
What a collection of stories! One of the best I’ve ever read: funny
and searing and true
*Sarah Crossan*
Louise Kennedy’s collection will stop you in your tracks . . .
Profound, beautiful and essential
*Liz Nugent*
A hugely impressive and memorable collection. I adored these
downbeat, stirring, disconcerting, punchy, touching, believable
short stories, so skilfully and beautifully executed
*Joseph O'Connor*
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