The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac Paperback by Louise Kennedy

Product Details

• Publisher: Riverhead Books (2024-12-03)
• Language: English
• Pages: 304
• ISBN-13: 9780593540930
• Weight: 215.46 grams
• Dimensions: 20.27 x 12.95 x 1.57 cm

Brilliant, dark stories of women’s lives by “a very major talent” (Joseph O’Connor, Irish Times)

In these visceral, stunningly crafted stories by the author of the much-acclaimed Trespasses, women’s lives are etched by poverty—material, emotional, sexual—but also splashed by beauty, sometimes even joy, as they search for the good in the cards they’ve been dealt.

A wife is abandoned by her new husband in a derelict housing estate, with blood on her hands. An expectant mother’s worst fears about her husband’s entanglement with a teenage girl are confirmed. A sister is tormented by visions of the man her brother murdered during the Troubles. A woman struggles to forgive herself after an abortion threatens to destroy her marriage. Plumbing the depths of intimacy, violence, and redemption, these stories are “dazzling, heartbreaking . . . keen to share the lessons of a lifetime” (Guardian).

About the Author

Louise Kennedy grew up near Belfast. The author of the novel Trespasses, she has written for The Guardian, The Irish Times, and BBC Radio 4. Before becoming a writer, she worked as a chef for almost thirty years. She lives in Sligo, Ireland.