There was lots to love (and be devastated by) in this debut by Louise Kennedy. Twenty-four-year-old Cushla is a teacher in a school in a town near Belfast in the 1970s. Every day the children in her class have to say what's happened in 'the news' and it is mostly a terrifying litany of The Troubles. Cushla, a Catholic starts an affair with Michael, a married Protestant in his fifties. The love (and lust) between them is very well written: the secrecy, the excitement, the difficulties. Of course it is not going to end well. I really enjoyed the setting, the characters, the love story, and for the most part, the writing - although Kennedy makes some interesting decisions. If you're a writer, you'll know this, but writers are continually making decisions on the micro level about what to include and what to leave out. There is no need to describe for example, someone walking across a room to pick up the phone unless there is a good reason. Or say hello and goodbye, or hundreds if not thousands of tiny actions that readers simply take for granted are happening. But sometimes, as I found with Trespasses, the author leaves out too many of these incidental actions which mean each time, I am pulled out of the story. In Trespasses for example, Cushla is having a meal with her mother when she decides she needs to get a camera film developed, so we see her picking it up and leaving. And I'm left thinking, but what does her mother think of that with no explanation of why she's leaving the table, or where she's going? Is she just sitting there open mouthed? That certainly isn't the intention. Is this just my brain straining to catch up, or does anyone else sometimes have problems like this?
And without giving any spoilers, I wasn't too sure about some plot choices Kennedy makes at the end of the novel. I felt an editor might have told her it needed a happy ending.
If this sounds like I'm being negative, it's only because I think this is an excellent debut and there was much to think about both in terms of plot and writing style. I'd recommend it.