My first novel Lazy City was out in 2023 and won a Betty Trask Award. You can buy it here.
Here are some nice reviews it got:
- John Self in The Telegraph: "To group them together is unfair to the best examples of the form, of which Lazy City is one… It's also a novel about trauma and its aftermath: again, a common theme today, but done sophisticatedly here, with a quality of thinking rare in a debut . . . Connolly gives Erin a dry, wry voice, and one that's frequently very funny . . . I felt better after reading this book. Connolly is a writer in whom I have faith".
- BookForum: “The same way that a virtuosic artist can conjure the shape of a human face in one stroke, every one of Erin’s half thoughts is masterfully rendered. Connolly’s hand never shakes… Connolly’s strength is her capacity to be serious and light simultaneously…In this gentle way, Connolly instructs that trauma’s deepest scar is the banality of its afterlife. Lazy City is a testament to that insight. It is not a story for our time. It is a story for all time.”
- Daunt books (ok not exactly a review but I was really pleased they treated the book on its own terms): “Every so often a truly distinctive new voice in fiction comes along and has us all excited.”
- The Irish Independent: "A compelling exploration of grief, uncertainty and disappointment, and a convincing portrait of Belfast's normalisation, such as it is. Indeed, where a Troubles novel might have foregrounded trauma, Connolly focuses instead on the impact of more ordinary, but still devastating, loss."
- The Observer: "Connolly's incisive debut novel conveys the quiet desperation of a generation facing economic instability and career uncertainty, compounded by the climate crisis . . . a nuanced portrait of her home city."
- The Big Issue: “However, the novel is about much more. Being a novel set in Belfast, there are many opportunities for it to reveal itself as a Troubles narrative in disguise, but Connolly steers clear of the pitfalls that so many other Northern Irish writers get trapped in... Exploring a theme that rarely makes an appearance in contemporary novels by younger writers, Erin often takes solace in the churches in her area... It’s a genius little move on Connolly’s part which suggests that, though she made her name as a non-fiction writer, her future as a novelist is incredibly exciting.”
- The Guardian: “On Erin drifts, a lost soul, but as she ponders the cosmic mystery of Kate’s demise, there’s one place she can go to ask questions: the Catholic churches, where the statues and symbols, for all their shabby kitsch, wrest a kind of accommodation with the human condition. “Does she get the guy?” indeed, but this time with a profound extra dimension.”
- The Daily Mail: "A timely coming-of-age novel."
Here are some interviews I did about it:
