I drew very heavily on my family’s story, or my own childhood, Kennedy said. As people get up each morning and go to work, school. According to author Louise Kennedy, the experiences she had as a child living through the Troubles inspired her most recent novel, fostering the creation of a narrative that touches on family and a divided country. Then the father of a student is savagely beaten, setting in motion a chain reaction that will threaten everything, and everyone, Cushla most wants to protect.Īs tender as it is unflinching, Trespasses is a heart-pounding, heart-rending drama of thwarted love and irreconcilable loyalties, in a place what you come from seems to count more than what you do, or whom you cherish. But here, love is never far from violence, and this encounter will change both of their lives forever. Against her better judgment – Michael is not only Protestant but older, and married – Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and an affair ignites. There she meets Michael Agnew, a barrister who’s made a name for himself defending IRA members.

By day she teaches at a parochial school at night she fills in at her family’s pub. Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a shattering novel about a young woman caught between allegiance to community and a dangerous passion.Īmid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast. Set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Trespasses is about a teacher. “TRESPASSES vaults Kennedy into the ranks of such contemporary masters as McCann, Claire Keegan, Colin Barrett, and fellow Sligo resident, Kevin Barry. Kennedy’s Trespasses is her first novel, following the short story collection The End of the World is a Cul de Sac. “Brilliant, beautiful, heartbreaking.”-J.Courtney Sullivan, New York Times Book Review SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST

Louise kennedy trespasses review