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A “rainy city, ringed by cloudy mountains; gritty, dirty, enervated by hatred and a harsh, hacking laughter”. This is post-Troubles Belfast, the setting for many of the stories in this latest collection from Rosemary Jenkinson. Drug-taking, casual sex and house parties are the norm in a “sleepless city at war with itself” – a world in which former killers struggle to come to terms with a peace dividend far removed from anything they’d imagined. Jenkinson’s achievement is to convey the reality of post-conflict society through stories that are as poignant as they are perceptive. From the former IRA bomber who tells his story to an English theatre director in return for a pint, to the Polish girl who loses her chance of future children through a botched abortion, and the Palestinian boy who plans to revenge his brother’s death with a suicide attack on an ice-cream parlour, this is an ambitious commentary on choices, consequences, and the impossibility of escaping our pasts.
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