LAZY CITY

After the tragic death of her best friend, a young woman returns home to Belfast, where she considers past relationships, her faith, and Northern Ireland’s recent history.

On leave from her graduate program and back home in Belfast, Erin, the narrator of Connolly’s thoughtful debut, attempts to rebuild her life after the loss of her best friend. Unsure what to do next and unable to live with her emotionally unstable mother, Erin moves into a wealthier neighbor’s house, acting as house cleaner and live-in babysitter for her two kids. Most evenings are spent drinking with her hometown friend Declan, an aspiring artist who’s now working at their neighborhood bar. It’s there that she meets Matt, a lonely yet suspiciously cheerful American, who’s in Belfast to teach a course at Queen’s University and write his novel. She and Matt begin seeing each other and, against her better judgement, she also resumes a quasi-relationship with an old flame, Mikey. As Erin moves through the daily motions—running, cleaning, drinking, sex with Matt or Mikey—she struggles to confront the depths of her grief. Unable to confide in others, she finds herself returning to church, where she begins to find some level of catharsis while sitting alone among the religious imagery. Erin is a compelling narrator whose few, well-earned moments of self-discovery and exuberance bring life to the narrative. But the emphasis on quotidian details—drinks consumed, drugs taken, routines followed—coupled with an over-reliance on Erin’s often underdeveloped introspection means that the novel never quite reaches its emotional potential, and Erin’s thorny relationships with her mother, Mikey, Matt, and herself often lack satisfyingly deep interrogation.

Excels in its measured and realistic portrait of grief but struggles to develop into a propulsive narrative.