Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BETTY TRASK PRIZE

Following the death of her best friend, Erin has to get out of London. Returning home to Belfast, an au pair job provides a partial refuge from her grief and her volatile relationship with her mother. Erin spends late nights at the bar where her childhood friend Declan works. There Erin meets an American academic who is also looking to get lost. Parallel to this she reconnects with an old flame, Mikey. This brings its own web of complications.

With a startlingly fresh and original voice – jarringly funny, cranky, often hungover – Lazy City depicts the strange, meandering aftermath that follows disaster.

Publisher Review

Here is a debut to savour, a brilliant and vivid new voice to guide us through the calamities of the contemporary -- KEVIN BARRY Somehow both tightly controlled and highly spontaneous, Rachel Connolly's Lazy City is refreshingly open to the world. Frank, attentive, free of artifice or emotional contrivances, Connolly brings something new to any subject she shines her singular intelligence on -- NICOLE FLATTERY Absolutely LOVED IT. A coming of age novel set in Belfast and delivered in the most beautifully clear and engaging prose -- FRANKIE BOYLE In the wry and compassionate Lazy City, Rachel Connolly deftly captures both the intoxicating chaos and listlessness of young adulthood, when life seems both full of possibility and impossibly elusive -- COLIN BARRETT This restless, big-hearted, accomplished novel examines the delicate, elaborate fabric of communication after grief. In a voice that is skirting, comic and attentive, Lazy City embodies the traits I admire in Rachel Connolly's writing: its charisma, nervous energy and verve -- LUCIE ELVEN Crisp, clear-eyed and witty writing that looks bravely at complicated emotions and renders them fully real. Connolly's characters and their flawed, human attempts at redemption will stay with me for a long time -- MONICA HEISEY Startling, propulsive and bracingly funny, Lazy City is a powerful debut by a gifted writer. Every word of it feels real and true in a way that only the most skilfully imagined fiction can. It feels like a book that needed to exist. I loved it -- MARK O'CONNELL Rachel Connolly is a bright new star in fiction. Connolly's beautifully drawn portrait of modem Belfast is fresh and quietly subversive and her prose is incisive and sharp. A must read -- ELIZA CLARK This is a compelling and very moving novel about the aftermath of grief. Connolly captures the bewilderment, raw pain and emotional paralysis of a young woman upended by loss. There is a quiet intensity - and an addictive quality - in the writing that slowly, cumulatively affects the reader. This is a marvellous evocation of the painful distance that exists between people and the eternal longing left in the wake of a lost loved one -- MARY COSTELLO Few writers capture the human condition and what drives social behaviour with the elegance, clarity and restraint that Rachel Connolly does. Funny, intelligent and dynamic, Lazy City paints a beautiful modern portrait of Belfast and the complex, self-imploding characters who navigate it. It shows how individuals attempt to find meaning and direction in the world, small cities and each other's lives -- JASON OKUNDAYE