Sweet Home
* Winner of the Butler Literary Award * Shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize * Longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award *
'Gripping, wonderfully understated, oozes humanity, emotion and humour' - Guardian
Set in the author’s native Belfast, the ten stories in Sweet Home lay bare the heartbreak and quiet tragedies that run under the surface of everyday lives. A lonely woman is fascinated by her niqab-wearing neighbours; a middle-aged teacher becomes obsessed with a young Gaelic football player; and an employer covers for his two employees caught having sex in a public toilet.
Wendy Erskine, prize-winning author of The Benefactors, offers perfectly formed, brilliantly observed portraits of people trying to carve out a life for themselves, all the while being buffeted by the loss, grief and regret that come their way. Warm, compassionate and funny, Sweet Home captures life in contemporary East Belfast, in all of its forms.
‘Wendy Erskine’s first collection, Sweet Home . . . is every bit as good as her early stories in the always astute Stinging Fly magazine promised’ - Jon McGregor, New Statesman
A Book of the Year in the Guardian, The White Review, Observer, New Statesman, TLS