The Resting Willow

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For my 200th post it seemed fitting to do my first #twofortuesday Trespasses is, at its heart, a story about an ill-fated love affair but its beauty and strength is that it becomes so much more than that, painting a rich and vibrant portrait of a whole community beyond our two lovers. This story is about an unexpected and forbidden love between young Catholic school teacher Cushla and older Protestant barrister Michael, playing out against the backdrop of the Troubles during the 1970s on the outskirts of Belfast. Against the odds, this love blossoms into something meaningful and, despite some reckless behaviour, seems to remain relatively well hidden until a devastating tragedy threatens to reveal all. Loved these as e-books and audiobooks last year.. and a little surprise was waiting for me this morning for the bookshelves at home. A new weekly routine means I now get a half hour book and coffee stop in my local cafe every Wednesday morning (before I race to do an early morning grocery shop and race home to work, but I’ll take what I can get these days!) I’m so late to the game at this stage reading Louise Kennedy that I decided to go back and start with her debut short story collection, The End of the World is a Cul de Sac, and I’m so glad I did. In a sharp and darkly humorous writing style that is so wonderfully assured for a debut, Kennedy gives us short but powerful glimpses into a whole array of lives, where her characters are haunted by mistakes, losses and betrayals, in unfulfilling or awkward relationships, in relationships where something is lost or broken, or simply struggling with everyday life in all it’s many and challenging guises. As a child, living in America’s Deep South, Gifty is eager to please her devoutly religious mother and idolises her big brother. Years later, now a neuroscientist living on the West Coast, Gifty has largely closed off her past. But when her mother, deep in depression brought on by grief, comes to stay, Gifty’s past comes back knocking. ‘Why do men bother with churches at all when instead they might make cathedrals out of sky and water? Better a chorus of birds than a choir. Better an altar of leaves. Baptise me in rainfall and crown me with sunrise.’ ‘This is our dancing time.’ ✨ All set for April ✨
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