Author(s): Colin Barrett

Short Stories | Ireland

The second short story collection from Colin Barrett, HOMESICKNESS marks the long-awaited return of the award-winning author of YOUNG SKINS

HOMESICKNESS is a quietly caustic, startlingly beautiful and wonderfully wry new short story collection. In these eight stories, Barrett takes us back to the barren backwaters of County Mayo, via Toronto, and illuminates the lives of outcasts, misfits and malcontents with an eye for the abrupt and absurd. A quiet night in the neighbourhood pub is shattered by the arrival of a sword wielding fugitive. A funeral party teeters on the edge of this world and the next, as ghosts won't simply lay in wake. A shooting sees an everyday call-out lead a policewoman to confront the banality of her own existence. A true follow-up to his electrifying debut collection, HOMESICKNESS marks Colin Barrett out as our most brilliantly original and captivating storyteller.

Praise for YOUNG SKINS 'One of the best books of the past decade... The characters are edgy, often violent, locked into a world described in ways that are both harsh and tender' Colm Toibin, Washington Post'Language, structure, style - Colin Barrett has all the weapons at his disposal, and how, and he has an intuitive sense for what a short story is, and what it can do' Kevin Barry 'Colin Barrett is a young man in the town of the short story, but it's fair to say he has the run of the place' Jon McGregor'Colin Barrett's sentences are lyrical and tough and smart... His stories are set in a familiar emotional landscape, but they give us endings that are new' Anne Enright

Review: A mesmerisingly powerful book, full of the strangeness and beauty of life. I've learned so much from Colin Barrett's work as a reader and writer...these stories are his best yet -- Sally Rooney
A masterwork - by turns hilarious and heartbreaking... What fierce, tender stories. Totally unforgettable -- Brandon Taylor
Addictive, stylish and violently funny stories, with riches on every page - an outstanding collection -- Kevin Barry
Shot through with dark humor, pitch-perfect dialogue and a signature freshness that makes life palpable on the page...Homesickness is graced with an original, lingering beauty * Stuart Dybek, New York Times Book Review *
The stories in Homesickness are crafted with skill and flair. Colin Barrett anchors the work with emotional accuracy and careful delineation of character, and then, using metaphors and beautifully made sentences, he lets his narrative soar -- Colm Toibin
Even though we rarely enter their internal worlds, Colin Barrett conjures interiority through his linguistic precision and attention to external detail, so that each story lingers in the mind and haunts its successors. -- Alexander Leslie * Times Literary Supplement *
Lyrical and tough and smart... His stories are set in a familiar emotional landscape, but they give us endings that are new -- Anne Enright
Superb...[T]here is an utterness to his attention, a devotion to the lives of his characters, that shifts the work into some more lasting place. Barrett is already one of the leading writers of the Irish short story, which is to braggingly say, one of the leading writers of the short story anywhere. He means every word and regrets every word. He just kills it. * Guardian *
Something struck me as I read these beautifully crafted, desperately sad, but often very funny stories: there is now a branch of English called the Colin Barrett -- Roddy Doyle
This is a beautiful and moving collection, from one of the best story writers today. -- Luke Brown * Financial Times *
[A] triumph... Homesickness is an adroit, wry set of stories by an author who has an eye for the quirks of human nature. -- Martin Chilton * Independent *
With a sharp eye for the absurd in the ordinary, Barrett's stories impart gritty and touching realisations about life as it really is. Edgy, sharp and utterly original, Homesickness is an utterly compelling collection and