Trespasses

by Louise Kennedy

One by one, she undid each event, each decision, each choice.
If Davy had remembered to put on a coat.
If Seamie McGeown had not found himself alone on a dark street.
If Michael Agnew had not walked through the door of the pub on a quiet night in February in his white shirt.

There is nothing special about the day Cushla meets Michael, a married man from Belfast, in the pub owned by her family. But here, love is never far from violence, and this encounter will change both of their lives forever.

As people get up each morning and go to work, school, church or the pub, the daily news rolls in of another car bomb exploded, another man beaten, killed or left for dead. In the class Cushla teaches, the vocabulary of seven-year-old children now includes phrases like 'petrol bomb' and 'rubber bullets'. And as she is forced to tread lines she never thought she would cross, tensions in the town are escalating, threatening to destroy all she is working to hold together.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Ireland, Irish Literature, Book Club, Literary Fiction, Historical

320 pages, ebook

First published April 14, 2022

About the author

Louise Kennedy grew up near Belfast. Trespasses is her first novel. She is also the author of a collection of short stories, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac. She has written for The Guardian, The Irish Times, and BBC Radio 4. Before becoming a writer, she worked as a chef for almost thirty years. She lives in Sligo, Ireland

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trespasses captures a time and place - Northern Ireland ca. 1975 - just about as well as any historical work out there. That this is Louise Kennedy’s debut novel is all the more impressive. Set in a small town outside Belfast at the height of the Troubles, we see a mixed community coming to terms with increasing sectarianism. Many of us viewing the Troubles from the outside, at a remove of time and distance, might see both sides as rather unsympathetic. Kennedy shows the situation with nuance, including a class element that adds another layer to the dynamic. At its heart, this is a personal, character driven work. We follow Cushla Lavery, a young RC schoolteacher, who doesn’t always follow the route prescribed for her, trespassing (as the title suggests) into a married relationship and, separately but perhaps relatedly, into the family life of one of her students. What might in another time and place be decisions that have only personal consequences, we see that in 1975 Northern Ireland Cushla’s choices have ramifications that impact her family and community. With our own society seeing alarming levels of polarization, this is at times a sobering read.

[Emily May · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF - 70%

I waited months for this at my library and I can say now it wasn't worth it. I'm glad I didn't give in and buy it.

The critical acclaim for Trespasses surprises me, and I can't help wondering if it's primarily because the book deals with such a difficult time and subject matter. Ireland's recent history is a miserable one, full of terror and bloodshed, so it feels as though a certain amount of respect is required towards anyone tackling it in historical fiction. But without the historical setting, I think Trespasses would have found itself cast into that pile of banal, surface-level literature labelled generically-- and a bit insultingly --as "Women's Fiction".

The Troubles forms the backdrop to an all-telling, no-showing tale about a Catholic woman's affair with a married Protestant. I found the third person narration boring and distant. The author neither delves deep enough into the historical aspect and horror of 1970s Northern Ireland, nor ignites a passionate romance. In one scene, it took me a while to realise the characters were having sex. Also, Cushla is flat as a crepe.

Obviously I didn't finish it, which will surely be unforgivable to some. But I honestly think I gave it more than enough of a chance to change my mind. One star seems harsh, but then... what did I like?

[Sujoya - theoverbookedbibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Shortlisted for The 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction*

4.5⭐️

“Booby trap. Incendiary device. Gelignite. Nitroglycerine. Petrol bomb. Rubber bullets. Saracen. Internment. The Special Powers Act. Vanguard. The vocabulary of a 7-year-old child now.”

Set in 1975 Northern Ireland, Trespasses by Louise Kennedy revolves around Twenty-four-year-old Catholic schoolteacher Cushla Lavery, a resident of a garrison town near Belfast. She teaches primary school while also taking up shifts in the family pub, run by her brother Eamonn. She lives with her mother Gina, who is grieving for her late husband drowning her sorrows in alcohol. One evening she meets Michael Agnew a Protestant barrister in the family pub. He approaches her to assist him and his friends to learn the Irish language, inviting her to an “Irish language night”. Initially uncomfortable among Michael’s elite friends, she finds herself drawn to Michael and his circle eventually falling in love with him, and embarking on an illicit affair despite the age difference and the fact that Michael is married.

Cushla is a caring teacher, genuinely concerned for the well-being of her students. One of her students, Davy McGeown, belongs to a mixed family (Catholic-Protestant), a fact that makes him and his family easy targets for harassment. A brutal attack on Davy’s father and Cushla’s support for the family and Davy puts her in a precarious position in the community. Her affair with Michael, who is known for his defense of IRA members, complicates her life further. What follows is a sequence of events that will jeopardize not only Cushla’s life but everything and everyone she holds dear.

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy is an exceptionally well written, intense novel. This is not an easy read and you know from the very beginning that there can be no happy ending for these characters. The prose is direct and at times brutally honest while describing the societal distinctions, violence, divisiveness, bigotry and politics in Northern Ireland during the early years of the Troubles. Bombs, barricades, arrests and death seem to be common occurrences that people have incorporated as a part of daily life, which in itself is heartbreaking. The author captures the essence of ordinary people trying to live normal lives in volatile times beautifully. The characters are flawed, realistic and convincing. Your heart goes out to Davy and you are compelled to sympathize with Cushla. You may not agree with some of her decisions but you cannot help but feel for her as she struggles with her feelings for Michael and fear for her as she attempts to help Davy’s family. The prose is crisp and sparse, at times matter of fact but the tension, the fear, the heartbreak, and the pain is palpable in this tightly woven novel.

Overall this is a beautifully written novel that I would not hesitate to recommend. I paired my reading with the excellent audio narration by Bird Brennan which made for an immersive experience.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that seems to have ubiquitous approval (among professional critics, as well as Goodreads reviewers). And I think it truly is very good, and I was impressed to learn that it is Irish writer Louise Kennedy's debut. Bravo, lady.

But....

I feel grinchy in my response to it, which isn't much of a response, really, but here's the thing: I found it to be a bit too straightforward. A very straight historical fiction novel, heavy on the romance. While it's entirely competent, and improved a lot in the final 30 pages, I found it leaning slightly too much towards general/commercial fiction for my taste. The whole time I was reading, I was yearning for something more. Something unique, artistic. A voice. Something to make me feel. I found myself pining, often, for Anna Burns' Milkman. Now THAT's a book about the Troubles. It's possible she may have ruined me for any and every book covering that time period.

But, that's just me. Literally. I'm the ONLY ONE who feels this way, apparently, so you may want to check out other reviews or, even better, read the book and decide for yourself!

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now winner of the British Book Awards (the “Nibbies”) for Best Debut Fiction.

Also shortlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize (for which I re-read the book, which was equally strong on a re-read).

6/16 in my longlist rankings. My Bookstagram brief review and GR/book themed photo here:

https://instagram.com/p/CrSpNp5rc3U/

Winner of the 2022 A Post Irish Book Awards Novel of The Year and the John McGahern prize for debut fiction by Irish writers.

This book featured in the 2022 version of the influential annual Observer Best 10 Debut Novelist feature (past years have included Natasha Brown, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Douglas Stuart, Sally Rooney and Gail Honeyman among many others) and was also picked out by the New Statesman (and others) as one of the most anticipated debuts of 2022.

This is a tough read – both in style and subject matter.

Interestingly it is one with strong links to the difficult subject matters covered by two recent Booker winners (Anna Burns and Douglas Stuart), but at least for me without the more redemptive elements of their writing (Anna Burns brilliantly inventive narrative style and slightly surreal humour, and Douglas Stuart’s ability to weave empathy and hope into the darkest tales) – so that this is a grittier and more uncompromising novel.

The book is set in Northern Ireland in 1975 (with a brief but effective prologue and epilogue some 40 year later). The main protagonist Cushla Lavery is in her mid-20s and lives with her widowed and alcoholic mother in a small town near Belfast, both of them working part time in the nearby family pub run largely now by Cushla’s brother Eamonn. The Lavery’s are a lower middle-class Catholic family in a town which is largely Protestant (as is the clientele of their pub) but where sectarian tensions are lower than in Belfast.

Cushla teaches 7 year olds at a local Catholic school – each day with her class starting with them reporting to her (at her headmaster’s suggestion) what they have heard on the news – a catalogue of bombings, shootings and beatings which works as an effective introduction to many chapters. There she finds herself drawn to a quiet boy Davy. Davy is from a poor family, the marks of his poverty and his background (out of work Catholic father and uncoverted Protestant mother – the children bought up as Catholics but living on a Protestant estate) making him something of an outcast. At the school Cushla tries to protect the children from the attempts of the local Priest to instill in them a sense of Original Sin, Damnation and of Protestant persecution. When Davy’s father is beaten up by a Protestant gang she draws closer to the family including Davy’s angry older brother Tommy.

At the pub she falls for a man – Michael, a barrister with outspoken views on Civil Rights – and despite him being unsuitable on at least three dimensions (Protestant, some 30 years older, married) the two conduct a sporadic and affair – which is largely hidden except to a group of Protestant friends that Michael meets up with, notionally to learn Irish, and who treat Cushla with something between hostility and condescension.

I cannot recall reading many books that so well captures a sense of a particular place and time in history. This is a book full of local and period colour – although that colour was very much in my mind a mix of a kind of dark grey of both weather and mood, a 1970s beige-brown of food (the author was for many years a chef and she has a brilliant ability to convey mood and class via descriptions of ordinary meals) and clothes, with a heavy dose of oppressive army camouflage.

Despite clearly setting out the issues of sectarianism, this is not a book which attempts to offer either a redemptive or moralistic answer to how to live in a society where democracy is compromised, everything from the justice system to the job market is rigged, the society is under a heavy military and paramilitary presence.

Cushla’s attempts at a kind of ecumenical approach to life: teaching at a catholic school but opposing what she sees as the excesses of the Priest; having an affair with a Protestant but making clear her issues with his friends anti-Catholic biases; her attempts to befriend everyone in the pub including RUC members; and her befriending of a mixed-religion family distrusted by both the Catholic priest and their Protestant neighbours – come across as initially naïve and ultimately rather disastrous in their consequences.

Similarly Michael’s attempt to work within the disputed legal framework but to fight against police and army injustice both causes his friends to despair at his risk taking and, as we later find out, manages to antogonise both the authorities and the paramilitaries – again with severe consequences.

Finally note that the book has something rather coincidentally in common with another of the Observer Top 10 Debut Novelists feature – “A Terrible Kindness” by Jo Browning Wroe also features a main character with the surname Lavery (who also lost their father, has a very difficult relationship with their mother and who ends up working in the family business).

My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for an ARC via NetGalley

[Jaidee · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 "organic, authentic, devastating" stars !!!

The Bronze Award Read of 2024 (third favorite read)

First of all a warm thank you to Julie J. whose compelling review propelled me to shortlist this novel. I was only mildly interested in reading this before her review. I would have really missed out...

Also thanks to Canadian Jen, Dolors, Robin and Nancy whose reviews I also had the opportunity to peruse....

I want to start by stating that I had very little understanding of Northern Ireland's troubles and reading a longish article really helped in both understanding and appreciating this novel. Here is the link if you too have some knowledge gaps.

https://www.britannica.com/event/The-...

Now onto the novel.

I was completely immersed in this novel. The authenticity shone forth and wrapped me in its spell.
This is an extremely well written book that presents both political and emotional complexities in the most straightforward of plots. There is nothing ornate or clever here but the author's dedication to truthfulness and organicity broke my heart many times while stoking outrage and tenderness in equal measure. A passionate but everyday love affair has repercussions not just for Romeo and Juliet but contributes to both implosions and explosions for families, the community and Ireland at large.

These are characters and narratives that are etched deeply into my gut.

Thank you for this humble yet riveting masterpiece Ms. Kennedy ! Brava !

[Canadian Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

As we forgive those who trespass against us…Ireland, 1975. The Troubles. An affair between a female teacher and a married man of significant age difference. A political hotbed of violence between the Catholics and Protestants. When one can’t help a neighbour without it becoming a choice of whose side you’re on. A tragic period in Ireland’s history.
A terrific debut.
4⭐️

[Ceecee · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up

The year is 1975, the place is Northern Ireland torn apart by The Troubles. Cushla Lavery is a Catholic primary school teacher where she takes Davie McGeown under her wing, his parents are unusual as it’s a “mixed marriage. Cushla’s family, especially her brother Eamonn, run a bar in a garrison town where soldiers also sink their pints. Amongst other customers is Michael Agnew, a Protestant barrister who has outspoken views on justice and civil rights, in particular the Diplock courts*. He is one of a few prepared to take on cases challenging the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary). Michael,though much older than Cushla and also married, is a very attractive man and thus begins a kind of tantalising dance between them. Is Cushla too “Irish“ for Michael to say nothing of the age gap? Is it a dangerous dance because of their religion??

I’m not going to pretend this is an easy read, of course it isn’t, it’s Northern Ireland during the troubles. It’s vivid and shocking and still brings tears to my eyes many years later. What I can say is that it captures the times brilliantly and in fact I go so far as to say it’s one of the best novels of Northern Ireland that I have read.It has everything, it’s brutal and absolutely chilling on occasions depicting the tragedy of the religious divide and the bigotry. It’s tragic and so heartbreaking and poignant that at times it hurts.

I like the way it’s written with short sharp sentences which perfectly match the events but with plenty of emotion from anger to sadness and frustration. The characterisation is excellent, you feel what Cushla does and like her you want to wrap your arms around little Davey. One of the things that strikes an especially chilling note is in the classroom especially from the terrifying priest. You read with growing disquiet, you sense it clearly and some scenes make you gasp and you know in your book bones what the outcome will be you still hope against hope. It’s a no holds barred, honest account of life in Northern Ireland at this time and it doesn’t sugarcoat it as it shouldn’t.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Bloomsbury Publishing plc for that much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

Diplock courts were introduced in 1973, a non jury trial for political and terrorism related crimes, abolished in 2007. Most judges were from the Protestant unionist majority.

[Dem · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful and deeply moving Novel set in the times of " The Troubles" in Northern Ireland.
Masterful storytelling by a very capable author. I was blown away by this debut novel and am so glad to have a hard copy for my real life bookshelf and while I will be recommending this to all and sundry I will not be loaning my hard back copy.


There is nothing special about the day Cushla meets Michael, a married man from Belfast, in the pub owned by her family. But here, love is never far from violence, and this encounter will change both of their lives forever.

Beautifully written, unhurried and terrific characterisation. when I started reading this I settled into the story so easily, its a slow burn as the author builds up the story and characters and then it just explodes and I couldn't stop thinking about this book when I finished it. It would make a terrific book club read as so much worth discussing here. I listened to this one on audible and 3/4 ways through I realised while the narration was excellent I needed to own a copy of this book and ordered a copy for my real life bookshelf.
Buy it, download it, listen to it, borrow it (just not from me) but get your hands on this one sooner rather than later.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

1975 Belfast, during The Troubles
A forbidden love in those desperate times.
Intimate, Powerful, Heartbreaking
An amazing debut

[Beata · Rating 4 out of 5]

A portrait of a young woman during The Troubles who tries to find happiness. I did enjoy Ms Kennedy's writing style and her ability to offer the feel of those days. A fine debut!
OverDrive, thank you!

[Dolors · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the kind of novel that kills you softly, almost surreptitiously, as it quietly evolves from the conventional plot of an illicit affair into a much larger, profound story.

Kennedy evokes the 70s in the Ireland of the Troubles with deft hand, and a small community torn by violence is vividly drawn, brought to life as if by magic.
Cushla, the 24 year-old primary school teacher and narrator of the story, is the perfect mirror where brutality in a conflict zone is irredeemably intertwined with daily life.
In Cushla’s tight-pressed garrison town just in the outskirts of Belfast, one needs know very well the difference between “what you do” and “what you are”. Are you married or single? Are you Catholic or Protestant? Are you religious or a sinner?

Kennedy’s major achievement is her acute, detailed portrayal of an array of different characters that hover over two set of opposed ideas, stressing the fact that the ambiguity inherent in the whole concept of “what you are” might define one’s fate leaving aside the real essence of the person who is judged by fanatics and sectarians of both sides.
In that way, a Catholic priest of dubious character is protected by the School Principal despite his obvious deviant intentions with small children whereas a Protestant barrister is the object of harassment simply because of his apparent “beliefs”, even if he devotes his time defending young Catholics who have been wrongly accused of violent crimes.

“What you are” matters more than “who you are” in Kennedy’s story, and Cushla is the perfect impersonation of that idea, both in her personal and in her community life.
An affair with an older man who might or might not have truly loved her marks Cushla’s for life in both spheres and she is judged without trial both by family and acquaintances. The fact that she loved him, that she cared for people, that she went out of her way to take care of her students regardless of their political or religious inclinations is not considered, and she gets banished from society when tragedy inevitably strikes.

A chilling story reminiscent of recent history that reads more like a cautionary tale.
A new author that invokes the artistry of such as Keegan, Tóibín or Trevor.
The kind of quiet prose that shouts out in loud wisdom when repression swallows words, justice and dignity, leaving an empty cocoon where a life sincerely lived should have taken its well-earned and rightful place.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a lot I liked about this book but even more I didn't. Can authors maybe hold a referendum and all agree to stop proliferating this idea that young women are easily sprung off older men who are kinda gross but they like them anyway? Maybe it's because I'm gay as hell and don't understand the straight psyche, but the whole "he was a gross oaf who devoured my face when he kissed me and grunted as he pounded into me for a total of 2 minutes when we had sex... but oh, how I love him!" thing makes me wanna throw myself out a window and it was here in its eye-rolling obnoxiousness in spades. I'm not saying younger women aren't taken in by older men, especially ones that seem intelligent and a bit la-di-da, but I am saying that we gotta stop presenting that shit as normal and even aspirational because it definitely isn't.

Anyway, as for the rest of the story... it was slightly predictable and I saw the major "twist" coming the second we were introduced to a specific character so it lacked emotional punch by the time the inevitable happened. Nevertheless, the writing was pretty fluid and it was an enjoyable read, just a bit of a maddening one.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bolted at 55% …. I still have the book for another few weeks.
I might read ahead a little bit but I already know I don’t like it. It’s easy to follow. Easy to get to know all the characters and the setting is also well developed —-
but I’m not a fan of intoxicating steamy cheating between a 24 year old women and an older, hot drooling guy who devours her every time he looks at her……
with a wife and kids at home.
Shame on the Cushla — Shame on Michael.

Plus — I had it with so much cigarette smoke on every page.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Davy's father's attack had been downgraded to an assault and was the second item, after a fatal shooting. Getting hacked to bits doesn't get you the top slot, said Gina. What sort of hellhole are we living in?

If books were colours, this would be grey. Maybe battleship grey, but still grey. Despite being set during the 1970s 'Troubles' in Belfast, it's a quiet, restrained book, muted in tone, perhaps to match the worn-down psyche of Cushla, the protagonist, a twenty-something teacher in a Catholic school just outside Belfast. With her dead father, her alcoholic mother, her brother who runs the family pub where she helps out in evenings, and the problems faced by the young children she teaches, Cushla is quietly desperate.

I like much of what this story does, especially the way it reveals the misogynist side of British army troops with their groping, touching and 'it's just a joke' verbal harassment of Cushla, alongside the more overt expressions of power. And the central tragedy happens almost by accident or, at least, by a sort of negative serendipity rather than intentionality.

All the same, the mundane, commonplace tone that is the voice of the novel can become wearisome to read - I can understand it as an artistic choice but it can be soporific. Readers who dislike narratives with no speech marks may want to avoid this. I think I admired what seems like social and historical authenticity more than enjoying this as a reading experience.

Thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a child reciting The Lord's Prayer during Sunday church services, I was fascinated by the word trespass. Layered with nuance, trespass is a word of motion that expresses a violation of boundaries, a word of emotion that signifies a betrayal of loved ones and of course, of God. A dark word of intrusion, lawlessness, a sibilant hiss passing through lips that murmured the familiar chant week after week "...Forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us...". Then suddenly, a change of church and a change of syntax: trespass was substituted with sin — a bludgeon of a word that offers no nuance, only a declaration of right or wrong.

And so it is with Louise Kennedy's brilliant, mournful and delicate Trespasses, a book of betrayals and violations, of faith, of all the gray between right and wrong.

The setting is Belfast, mid 1970s. Bombs, beatings, bedlam are quotidian facts of life in a city torn apart by sectarian violence. Cushla Lavery, in her early twenties, teaches at a Catholic primary school, cares for her alcoholic mother and helps out at the bar her older brother now runs after the untimely death of their beloved father. She and her mother live in a suburb just outside the city, far enough removed from the civil war to not fear for their immediate safety, yet threat is all around them. Soldiers frequenting the pub ritually harass Cushla and she must bear it, for fear of their guns and their retaliation. And when she falls in love with Michael Agnew, a barrister and pub regular, it is less that he's married and more that he is a Protestant that keeps their affair a necessary secret.

Michael is older, erudite, a liberal who defends young Catholic men who've run afoul of state. He invites Cushla to tutor a group of his upper-middle class friends in Irish. Cushla is acutely aware of the economic, class and religious divide between her and Michael's bohemian cohort. In turn they treat her with casual condescension, their knowing smirks revealing they are in on the illicit affair, her first clue that she's far from Michael's first dalliance.

While Cushla is treated like a curious accessory by Michael's friends, she is equally out of place in the cement high-rise ghettos of Belfast, where she visits the family of one of her students, Davy. The seven-year-old is bullied at school for his diminutive size and hesitant speech, but at home the situation is more dire: his is an interfaith family living in a Loyalist enclave. Davy's Catholic father is beaten nearly to death, forcing Davy's older brother to quit school to support his family. Cushla does what she can to protect young Davy, transporting him to and from school, but in this area of betrayal, retaliation and violence that is somehow calculated yet careless, Cushla's protection becomes the family's undoing, and soon enough, her own.

Louise Kennedy writes quietly into this madness, inviting you to lean into her precisely-rendered details: the warm glow of a study lit by a single lamp, the tangling vibes of a jazz record, the scent of skin upon waking, the heart-thudding fear of being pulled over by soldiers in an armored vehicle, a field covered in gorse where lovers meet, wounds sliced into palms like stigmata on a saint. The plot is a series of inevitably tragic connections and yet the reading is propulsive because you care so damn much about the characters—about Cushla and Davy, about Cushla's mother, Gina, who can't be much past her mid-40s, her beauty draining into the bloat and ruin of drink, about Davy's brother Tommy, who watches Cushla with ink-blue eyes, recites poetry and is drawn inexorably into the civil war that is destroying his family.

Kennedy calibrates the serious subject matter with pleasure and humor, sensuality and longing. This is a deeply humane, insightful, unflinching novel of the human condition set in a place and time defined by politics. Stunning and so very highly recommended.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cushla is a teacher by day, by night she works at her familys bar. After her father's death she is responsible for her mother, a mother who is trying to drown her life in drink. It is the time in Ireland called the troubles, and Cushla falls for a man she knows she shouldn't. Not only is he married but he is a Protestant. Who you talk to, who you try to help, all matter because it could get you killed.

A tragic book for a tragic time. Trying to live normal lives when so much is not normal. Could be deadly. i loved the characters, a student of Cushlas whose family she tries to help with horrific results. Hard to believe this is the authors first novel, but it is. Looking forward to what she writes next.

[Bonnie G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ostensibly this is a story about a Catholic woman and a Protestant man in Northern Ireland during the troubles. Maybe "ostensibly" is the wrong word. It is that, but it is so much more.

This tells the story of 24-year-old Catholic schoolteacher Cushla who also works in the family bar after her father passes and her mother turns herself over to alcohol and pills. It is there she meets Michael, a very married, cultured radical lawyer twice her age (his wife was a school chum of Cushla's mother.) Their affair is impacted at every moment by what is happening outside the door. Michael is doing something secret and dangerous he cannot speak of. The RUC and the IRA are brutal and demeaning to friend and foe. Michael and Cushla's relationship shows us so much about the death of hope among Catholics in Northern Ireland, kept from jobs, from safety, from any ability to sustain the present or plan for the future. In the midst of all this gloom the passionate, brilliant, handsome, philandering man is like a burst of light in the unrelenting greyness to Cushla.

There is not much question this is a relationship doomed to leave many hearts broken (including this reader's), but the story turns out to be filled with quiet humor and big surprises Those surprises are things well foreshadowed, but at least for me never guessed at. The surprises make the story better and tell us more and more about living during the Troubles and make for an action-packed cannot-put-it -down finale. This book is beautifully written and extremely immersive. I read more slowly than I usually do to get every word, and I found myself thinking about the book and anxious to return to it even as I was having fun doing other things with old friends and family. It left me with a substantial book hangover, that I expect may taint my next novel. Time to jump to nonfiction, mystery, and romance for a bit before picking up more good litfic.

[Paula K · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARD 2022 - novel of the year
KERRY GROUP IRISH BOOK AWARD NOMINEE 2023
WOMENS PRIZE FOR FICTION NOMINEE 2023


This is one of the finest books I have read in awhile…

What it was like in Belfast…the war…the bombings…a complicated romance…family life and the stress of religion…

Gorgeous

5 out of 5 stars

[Southern Lady Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I started reading this with @paperbackbish --- I had no idea is was in for such a gut-wrenching read. I thought I'd be reading a salacious tale of a marriage falling apart due to adultery - but what we are actually given is so much more than that.

Cushla is the daughter of an alcoholic just trying to survive during a period of unrest in 1970s Ireland: The Troubles. When she meets a man while working at her brother's bar, she starts to feel special.. even though he's married. As the turbulent world around them continues.. Cushla starts to reevaluate everything and everyone in her small town.

-- The commentary on Catholicism is incredibly fascinating throughout but rife with triggering subjects.
-- Trespasses explores what it means to be a woman in relation to family, colleagues, and even the children she knows she can't quite save.

NOTES:
- Infidelity is discussed but not condoned. If the idea of that subject puts you off, just know that it did for me, too but I was quickly over that feeling once I started reading and took a look at the world around our heroine.
- The ending had me in tears. So perfectly imperfect!

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[Flo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now shortlisted for Women's Prize for Fiction 2023

The story of an affair during The Troubles. The writing is good. Ireland is always interesting in one way or another. But Cushla is too ordinary. All the engaging bits came from the others.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Trespasses just weeks after finishing Audrey Magee’s The Colony, you will forgive me if I wonder, “What is wrong with people? Why can’t we all just get along?” The senseless violence and killing of young men who are innocent of everything except being part of the wrong religion just plain hurts my heart.

Trespasses covers some familiar ground. It takes place in Belfast at the height of the Troubles, and at its core is a passionate affair between an older and married Protestant barrister who defends unjustly arrested Catholic men, and a young Catholic primary teacher in a parochial school who is less than half his age.

Everything you expect to find in a book of this kind is there: the pointless murders, the anger and hatred, the bombs, the suspense, the tragedy. The story is told in third-person and is far from the meta-fiction that distinguishes so many contemporary literary writers.

And yet. And yet.

There is something completely immersive and authentic about this novel – so much so that it feels as if the reader knows these people and lives in their world. From the opening, when Cushla Lavery enters her family pub, scrubbing off the Ash Wednesday ashes as she serves a pint to Michael Agnew, to the poignant ending, the descriptions are vivid and masterful.

Other narrative strands are interwoven: Cushla’s concern and caring for her widowed, despairing, gin-soaked mother Gina. And her involvement with her young student, Davy McGeown, whose father was disabled by the Protestants and who is bullied at school and in danger of being lost. These threads will come together, but at the forefront is the forbidden love with Michael, which leaves her “in a sort of heartsick stasis.”

These flawed characters – and their random acts of kindness and belief in the power of love – raise this novel to the highest levels. I cared about them, which is one of the best compliments you can give an author.

[Antoinette · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1975, I graduated from college. I started working full time as a nurse. I went out; I had fun; I started travelling. I was never scared to walk out my door worried that someone would want to kill me because I was Catholic.

In 1975, in Northern Ireland, people lived in fear. Louise Kennedy takes us back to that time and allows us to “feel” the impact of what was happening. What happens in this book is just a small slice of what was happening all over Northern Ireland.

Cushla, a 24 yr old teacher, who is Catholic, meets Michael, a 50 ish yr old barrister, who is Protestant- an illicit,passionate affair ignites between them.

Cushla also becomes involved in the life of her student, Davy, after his father is beaten and left for dead. The consensus amongst the locals is don’t reach out and help your neighbours, or else.

What a horrible time to live through. My heart especially went out to the children. As they got older, they were indoctrinated to hate and to seek revenge. This book is a heartbreaking read- it looks back on a time filled with suspicion, hate, bombings and everyday fear. My life was idyllic in comparison. It is so hard to reflect on such a destructive time.

Published: 2022

[Peter Boyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've seen Trespasses pop up on quite a few 'Best Fiction of 2022' lists, so I decided to give it a whirl. For the most part, I thought it was solid, but it didn't blow me away. Then it hit me with a gut-punch and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since.

The story is set in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. Cushla Lavery is a 24-year-old primary school teacher, living in a Catholic household on the outskirts of Belfast. Her mother Gina is an alcoholic and she spends evenings helping out at her brother Eamonn's bar. Cushla is popular among her students, taking a real shine to Davy, a seven-year-old who comes from a mixed Protestant-Catholic family, and bullied because of it. Into the bar one evening comes Michael Agnew, a charismatic barrister. Cushla gets talking to him and there is an undeniable attraction, even though he's much older, married and a Protestant. He asks her to teach the Irish language to him and some of his friends and a relationship blossoms between the pair. But they both know deep down that this affair can't go on forever, and it ends up in a tragic place that neither of them were prepared for.

Kennedy does a great job of describing everyday life during the Troubles, with the characters numb to the senseless violence they hear every day on the news, treating bomb scares and soldiers on the streets like they were a mundane formality. She captures the relationship between Cushla and Michael so brilliantly - the intensity, the guilt, the irresistible nature of it amid the knowledge that it won't last forever. The blow, when it comes, is masterfully delivered and absolutely devastating. It's a strong debut from Louise Kennedy and I can certainly see why it has been praised so highly.

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s 1975 and 24-year-old Cushla is trying to navigate the unrelenting terrain of religious and political differences. She teaches seven and eight-year-olds in a Catholic school where Father Slattery, makes the rounds in the classrooms scaring the children with horrible stories, telling them the Protestants hate them. Cushla doesn’t like Slattery because he managed to get money out of her father when he was in the hospital drugged on morphine. When she reports her concerns about Slattery to the headmaster, they fall on deaf ears. Slattery is the status quo, the school exists on parish land.

After school, Cushla helps Eamonn, her brother at his pub, previously owned and run by their father. As Catholics living in a predominantly Protestant garrison town near Belfast in Northern Ireland they try to keep their heads down. Still, it’s an almost impossible task as the day’s news carries all the latest crimes and tragedies that have been visited upon the people. All kinds of bombs, people murdered in their beds, attacked on the streets, beaten to a pulp, the anxiety of wondering who would be next took a toll. It’s difficult to imagine the stress of being a child or of being a parent trying to raise children during those years. Kennedy was born in the late 1960s and grew up in Northern Ireland so she writes from a place of understanding. The news stories are a constant backdrop to the story. The children at school report news events as their day begins. Cushla doesn’t like to start the children’s day with all the anxiety-provoking news, but the headmaster insists.

Cushla meets Michael Agnew at the pub. He’s a barrister who takes on cases defending IRA members, which brings him to the attention of the public. He’s in his fifties and different than anyone else Cushla has ever known. At the bar, Eamonn treats her with disdain and is never truly grateful for the help she gives. Men grope her and Eamonn, trying not to rock the boat ignores it. No so, Michael Agnew. He dishes out words harsh enough to send a groper on his way. Afterward, he follows Cushla home to be sure she arrives safely. The author shows how Protestant Michael and his friends live in the best part of town, have the nicest houses, and have access to the best education and jobs. Even so, Michael is a huge contrast from the men Cushla is used to and importantly treats her with respect and is interested in what she has to say.

Cushla is working middle class. In her classroom, we meet Davy McGeown, a delightful seven-year-old, whom the other children treat badly because he smells and whose fate is to live in council housing because his family is poor. The door to their home is locked with a series of locks that have to be gone through before anyone enters or leaves. Davy loves his teacher, whom he calls “Miss,” throws his arms about her, catches rides with her, and makes her laugh. The feeling is mutual. When he visits Cushla’s home, Davy comments, “So this is how the other half lives.” Kennedy shows the class distinctions and how they matter, the parts of life that fall out of a person’s control, that are delineated by their place and position in society, and how next to impossible it is to change anything.

Kennedy’s characters are complicated. Their relationships are fluid and dynamic. She excels in her characterization of Cushla, a young woman who is at times naive and unprepared for the life she is now living. I saw how Cushla barged ahead without thinking, how she made mistakes and messed things up, and how much she cared and wanted to effect change, particularly in the lives of the children. I think Cushla and people like her always make a difference. How can kindness not? And yet, the hard soil of poverty and discrimination threatens any seed.

Michael’s deception of his wife is one of his flaws. Kennedy brings Michael’s wife and son into the story but there’s not a deep probe into his marriage. It is his intellect, his appreciation of a good meal, his physicality, and the way he treats Cushla that win her over. It is a dangerous time and Cushla does not appreciate the dangers until she has to.

A great story that helped me understand “The Troubles” in a way that I did not before.

[Aoife Cassidy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my, what a writer Louise Kennedy is. She has such a unique style - so quiet, intimate, sensuous, tender, evocative. Her sentences are short on words, long on emotion. Her characters are so real, her dialogue almost hurts to read at times such is her skill to capture a feeling or a moment. Her ability to evoke a sense of time and place is spot on.

This is her debut novel and it has a quiet power that left me devastated. It tells the story of Cushla Lavery, a 24 year old Catholic primary school teacher in late 1970s Northern Ireland, who also helps her brother Eamonn at the family pub. Cushla meets Michael, an older Protestant married man who works as a barrister and is involved in the civil rights movement, outspoken against injustice and police brutality.

When one of Cushla’s young pupil’s family runs into difficulty, Cushla begins to help out, with consequences that only begin to reveal themselves gradually with a ripple effect across Cushla’s life.

There is an melancholy sadness and a seething anger that permeates this book - it is a book set during The Troubles after all - but there’s also a strong sense of longing, of yearning, for love, for happiness, for peace, for something better.

“Saudade” is the Portuguese word for a sad state of intense longing for someone or something that is absent. The author draws a parallel between saudade and the Irish word “dúil” meaning desire, craving, longing. The word comes up in this novel in a discussion between Michael and Cushla, and it perfectly encapsulates the mood of the book.

I was a big fan of Louise’s short story collection The End of the World is a Cul de Sac and I loved this every bit as much and more. Her descriptions of the relationship between Cushla and Michael, the awkward physicality, the depth of emotion - all of it is so perfectly rendered. It’s hard to shake that feeling of doom that hangs over the relationship. As a reader though, I was hanging on to hope for Cushla.

This is a triumph of a novel, a gorgeous, layered, emotional story that delivers on so many levels. I know I’m not going to be able to stop thinking about it. It’s early in the year but I’m calling this for my Irish book of the year. 5/5 ⭐️

**Trespasses will be published on 14 April. Sincere thanks to the author, the publisher @bloomsburypublishing and @netgalley for an advance copy of this book. As always, this is an honest review.**

[Maxwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Womp womp. This was a book I figured I'd love because I'm a huge Irish literature nerd. But something about this story just did NOT work for me. I didn't really understand Cushla's motivations at all. I felt that the events of the novel happened to her, but the focus of the story wasn't really about her reactions to these events at all so she felt like she had no agency within the story (not criticizing whether or not she as a character believably would or would not have agency in her time). Idk, I just felt like nothing that happened before the 70% mark was really interesting or impactful. The one 'twist' was surprising to me, but once it happened I immediately pegged who was responsible because I had been suspicious of that character the whole book. It just felt a bit hollow to me which was not what I expected.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love and hate in Ulster where genuine fear of intimidation and violence was ever present during the Troubles. Sad times.

I was engaged with the caring relationship that Cushla had with the persecuted McGeown family, but the central romance did not spark my interest.

[fatma · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

"It's a piece of sculpture, made of resin, fabric, glass fibre. A white figure on a plinth, chalky, sarcophagal, a shrouded look about the face, features indistinct. The body is oddly sexless, though it is male; there is breadth in the torso bulk at the chest. From the waist up he looks peaceful, sleeping head resting near the bend of an arm. There is something not right about the pose, though; his limbs are splayed awkwardly, have not been arranged. [. . . ]

The detail is intimate, accurate, even, almost as if the cast had been moulded over his body. The neat ball of fat in his middle. The slight raise of his right shoulder. A doughiness about the jaw. She looks at his face, afraid she will see fear or pain, but he looks just as he did when he was sleeping."

Trespasses is a book that, quite simply, does not fuck around. It's such a taut novel, vibrating with tension, and yet so controlled and precise in the way that it manages that tension. Its strength lies as much in what it says as what it doesn't; Kennedy knows when to give and when to withhold, and this makes for such striking, resonant narrative moments. (There's this small moment in the last chapter of the book that I haven't been able to stop thinking about; not gonna lie I get emotional every time I think about it.) A character will say or do something that seems significant--a line, a reaction, a gesture--and then the chapter will just end, or the scene will just move on. It's tantalizing, yes, but not needlessly so; that it withholds is as much a narrative choice as it is a product of the sociopolitical conditions of the setting that grounds that narrative. It's a novel that leaves spaces for the unsaid, and that is in fact what it is all about: tensions--sectarian, familial, romantic--that the characters have to navigate largely by way of the unsaid: through subtext, through intimation, through looks or gestures that speak for them when they can't speak for themselves, or else can't say what they want to.

Trespasses is set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and it does not budge an inch when it comes to its depiction of life during that time. There is the fear, the violence, the animosity, but there is also the way in which those things have become not ordinary, exactly, but subsumed into the everyday. Some chapters will begin by just reeling off a staccato, almost casual list of recent atrocities--shootings, bombs, deaths. We also see this in other chapters where Cushla, a teacher, reflects on the way her seven-year-old students have accepted these atrocities as part of the way things are.

"Booby trap. Incendiary device. Gelginite. Nitroglycerine. Petrol bomb. Rubber bullets. Saracen. Internment. The Special Powers Act. Vanguard. The vocabulary of a seven-year-old child now."

But Trespasses is also about a romance, an affair between Cushla and Michael, a married man and a lawyer. Novels about star-crossed affairs are a dime a dozen, but the way Kennedy evokes the relationship between these two here is distinct and memorable, all the more so because it is so carefully rendered. Theirs is a complicated relationship, to say the least: there's a lot that they don't know about each other, and their differences--religious, class, age--are significant and consequential. Romance it is, but romanticized it most certainly is not. And yet despite all of this, I was deeply invested in Cushla and Michael's relationship; it felt believable, not uncomplicated but still evidently and poignantly founded on something real and meaningful to these characters. We get to see their dynamic develop through key scenes--an encounter at a bar, a dinner party, a trip--snapshots that are not long or especially detailed, but that manage to be incredibly evocative of the kind of people these characters are, and of the way that they relate to each other. (I especially loved Cushla: her self-awareness, her emotional sensitivity, her dry sense of humour. She could've so easily been a standard Disaster Woman Protagonist, but she thankfully wasn't.) And again, that give and take that Kennedy is so good at: you get to know these characters, but you also come to understand that you don't have full access to them (nor will you ever). You don't get comprehensive backstories or uninhibited self-disclosures, you just get bits and pieces here and there. It's a real testament to Kennedy's skill as a writer, then, that those "bits and pieces" feel and are substantial; rather than make her characters distant or inscrutable, they make them interesting. All of this is to say, this is not a sentimental novel, and it is precisely this fact that makes it so compelling. Rather than colour in all the details, it gives you the kind of sharp, precise images that, in the end, create an impression that is all the stronger for its restraint.

Trespasses begins and ends with a chapter set in 2015, and it is these two chapters that, I think, best sum up the character of this novel--most of all, the way it is both about the tender intimacy and the blunt violence, those two things skillfully and movingly woven into each other in Kennedy's hands.

[Trudie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This started strongly but petered out somewhere along the way. A couple of issues. Firstly, I have had my fill of alcoholic mother characters. Shuggie Bain and Grand just did this so well that when I encountered Gina it seemed like a well-worn trope.

The most egregious issue however was the illicit relationship. So boring - the urbane older married man seduces the young barmaid/teacher. It could have worked if the guy didn't seem to be a complete jerk for most of the book - it rather undermined the entire emotional response I suspect I was supposed to have.

A ho-hum story set in Northern Ireland, that makes me yearn for the uniqueness of Milkman