The End Of the World Is a Cul De Sac

A dazzling, heartbreaking debut collection Guardian

Kennedy s voice, and her unforgiving gaze, are electric Sunday Times

These stories sing, haunt and inspire laughter ... One of the best collections I ve read in years Sinead Gleeson

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE JOHN MCGAHERN PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE KATE O BRIEN AWARD 2022

The secrets people kept, the lies they told.

In these visceral, stunningly crafted stories, people are effortlessly cruel to one another, and the natural world is a primitive salve. Here, women are domestically trapped by predatorial men, Ireland s folklore and politics loom large, and poverty - material, emotional, sexual - seeps through every crack.

A wife is abandoned by her new husband in a ghost estate, with blood on her hands; a young woman is tormented by visions of the man murdered by her brother during the Troubles; a pregnant mother fears the worst as her husband grows illegal cannabis with the help of a vulnerable teenage girl; a woman struggles to forgive herself after an abortion threatens to destroy her marriage.

Announcing a major new voice in literary fiction for the twenty-first century, these sharp shocks of stories offer flashes of beauty, and even humour, amidst the harshest of truths.