Life Without Children Synopsis
Love and marriage, children and family, death and grief. Life touches everyone the same, but living under lockdown? It changes us alone.
A man abroad wanders the stag-and-hen-strewn streets of Newcastle, as news of the virus at home asks him to question his next move.
An exhausted nurse struggles to let go, having lost a much-loved patient in isolation.
A middle-aged son, barred from his mother's funeral, wakes to an oncoming hangover of regret.
Told with Doyle's signature warmth, wit and extraordinary eye for the richness that underpins the quiet of our lives, Life Without Children cuts to the heart of how we are all navigating loss, loneliness and the shifting of history underneath our feet.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781529115024 |
| Publication date: |
6th October 2022 |
| Author: |
Roddy Doyle |
| Publisher: |
Vintage an imprint of Vintage Publishing |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
192 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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Roddy Doyle Press Reviews
'A quietly devastating collection of short stories that brilliantly portrays the pervasive sense of hopelessness that immobilised us during the dog days of Covid. Silver linings have been hard to find lately, but in Life Without Children Doyle has given us just that' Sunday Times
'A gem of a collection. Roddy Doyle's greatest gift has always been for dialogue. He can command the full range of Irish voices and registers, but he has lately put his gifts to use in painting a picture of characters in their third age' Nikhil Krishnan - Daily Telegraph
Quietly devastating,Doyle's clipped, plain dialogue shivers with emotion' Philip Womack - Financial Times
'Life Without Children displays Doyle's remarkable talent for conveying the strongest of emotions in the simplest of words and the shortest of sentences. It bristles with quietly sharp insights into the shape of a human life' James Walton - Reader's Digest
'There is an immediacy to the stories in Life Without Children, an emotional charge that comes with writing in real time, and an optimism too. In the stripping away of everyday anxieties, the virus reveals what matters most, those qualities that are always at the heart of Doyle's fiction: love and connection' Stephanie Merritt - Observer
About Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. His first novel, The Commitments, was published to great acclaim in 1987 and was made into a very successful film in 1991. The Snapper was published in 1990 and has also been made into a film. His third novel, The Van, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and was also made into a film. Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha won the 1993 Booker Prize. His most recent novel is A Star Called Henry. He lives in Dublin.
Photo © Amelia Stein
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