We all Die in the End
by Elizabeth Merry
A collection of interlinking short stories from Northern Ireland

Sardonic, dry, edgy tales from the streets of a small seaside town

"There were in fact a lot of wasps about and I was going to say we should go home but I thought that if we stayed Jennifer might get stung on the tongue and choke to death, or maybe she would really get sunstroke. I waved my hand over the food and fussed around but Jennifer didn't stop. "
Page 24
'Carmel'

A collection of offbeat and at times rather shadowy stories peppered with emotionally dysfunctional characters. In the manner of a roving camera, Merry slowly and steadily peels back the layers of her small-town protagonists to reveal their most innermost flaws.

"Even with the lights on in the church there was a darkness, especially before the altar where the coffin rested on a trestle. The stained-glass windows were grey with rain; candle flames smoked in the draughts and threw shadows. If Angela closed her eyes she could imagine that the shadows were rows of nuns and whispering girls and that Isabel and herself were back in the school chapel, shivering in the cold half-dark at early mass."
Page 170,
'Angela'

A quirky, wry and deadpan collection full of tragicomic tales