Description

A collection that shows us ourselves as we truly are

***AN IRISH TIMES 2024 DEBUT WRITER TO LOOK OUT FOR***

‘A major new talent’ I

‘So precise and articulate’ SUNDAY TIMES

Two teenage girls fixated on each other’s bodies enter into a destructive competition; a woman’s encounter with her ex forces her to reflect on the women’s group that saved her; a couple’s future is called into question after the damp expert they hire for their bathroom offers them free counselling; an older man’s buried grief emerges during an altercation with a mother driving a 4×4; and over the course of a bitter winter a waitress lacks the money to fix an impacted tooth as the cracks begin to show in her precariously balanced life.

Free Therapy takes us into the inner lives of women and men who are versed in the language of therapy, possessed with the self-knowledge needed to change their lives, but finding themselves unwilling to doing so. As her characters try and fail to connect – via sex, friendship, screens and work – Rebecca Ivory explores desire in all its forms, revealing the ways in which we posture and present, and the softness and insecurities that lie beneath.

Perfectly observed, wry and illuminated by moments of sympathy and wisdom, Free Therapy shows us ourselves as we truly are.

‘Arresting and inventive’ SALLY ROONEY

‘Her writing feels so fresh’ PANDORA SYKES

Publisher Review

Arresting and inventive — Sally Rooney, author of Normal People I ate it up in two sittings. Beneath these stories runs a pulsing darkness, a restless humour, a palpable and astute distrust. Here are all the ways we scam each other, but most of all ourselves — Saba Sams, author of Send Nudes Her writing feels so fresh… What these stories evoke the most is a feeling of life not looking like you thought it would; of restlessness and ennui, shot through with moments of piercing revelation that made me put the book down and think, ‘isn’t that a thing’ several times — Pandora Sykes, author of How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right? The stories in Free Therapy are unerring, ferociously original, cooly controlled and queasy with revelation. They live viscerally in you for days afterward — Colin Barrett, author of Homesickness Sharp, astute and painfully funny, Rebecca Ivory has written a powerful collection of stories. I genuinely couldn’t get enough — Michael Magee, author of Close to Home Rebecca Ivory is a brutally honest and brilliant writer. Her stories are dark and unafraid, and are always told beautifully, shrewdly, stylishly. Oh, and she’s very funny. Here is a collection that teems with compassion and curiosity for the little interactions and the little falls that make us who we are — John Patrick McHugh, author of Pure Gold Rebecca Ivory’s Free Therapy is rich, complex and sophisticated — Nicole Flattery, author of Nothing Special Reading Free Therapy is like scanning through people’s intrusive thoughts and watching them come to life – delicious, snort-worthy and highly entertaining. Rebecca Ivory’s writing isn’t just full of excellent one-liners, it’s astute, original and entirely compulsive — Ore Agbaje-Williams, author of The Three of Us