Author: Louise Kennedy
Title: Trespasses
Year of publication: 2022
Page count: 304
Rating: ★★★★
This stunning debut novel was recommended to me when I was looking for books set in Belfast, which I’ll be visiting next year, and I am so glad—it’s not the sort of novel that would’ve crossed my radar, and even if it had, the blurbs on the cover rather unfairly market it as “a compulsively readable love story”, and not being one for romance books, I more than likely wouldn’t have given it a second glance. I would have been missing out. Trespasses really captures a time and place—Northern Ireland in the mid-70’s, when the violence during the Troubles reached its peak—with what I felt wasn’t only historical authenticity, but also a nuance that is severely lacking when describing this conflict in retrospect.
Cushla is a 24-year old Catholic primary school teacher who spends some of her evenings helping out at the family’s bar, run by her brother, frequented by leering British soldiers. The local community is mixed, but the sectarian tensions are mounting, and Cushla gets caught up in them in several ways: Firstly, at her day job, she takes a shine to one of her students from a mixed Catholic-Protestant family, taking him under her wing and trying to protect him from his status as a bullied outsider. Secondly, at her evening job, she meets a married Protestant barrister in his mid-50’s, committed to the defense of IRA members. An affair blossoms—rather incomprehensibly, to me, something which is less Kennedy’s failing as a writer and more due to the fact that I just don’t get the appeal about romances with such age gaps—but thankfully, despite the illicitness of it, and all the guilt that brings, it’s not the sentimental, melodramatic type of romance I have no use for, instead tying into the much more interesting social themes of the novel, exploring the age, class, religious and political divides of this… trespass.
“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.”
While the whole books hangs on it, it’s mostly everything outside of the affair that kept my interest—the descriptions of everyday life during this time, the characters leading their quiet lives numb to the senseless and relentless violence, some chapters opening with an unflinching, poignant litany of news headlines read out by the children in Cushla’s class. There is a melancholy sadness and seething anger permeating this book—how could it be otherwise, given the setting—and Kennedy skillfully handles the narrative’s many layers.
It’s a taut novel, in both style and narrative. No speech marks are used, which effectively adds to the mounting tension and sense of impending doom. I found it evocative and vivid, but in a quiet, understated way; perfectly grounded in the time and place it portrays, compelling and immersive. The fact that this is a debut novel by someone who didn’t start writing until the age of forty-seven makes it all the more impressive—Kennedy’s prose is attentive and lovely, but without ever calling undue attention to itself, and seems instilled with a clarity and wisdom that can only come from life experience. I wondered, more than once, how much of this may be autobiographical—even the affair that I wasn’t fully sold on had an unshakeable sense of realism about it. I will definitely pick up Kennedy’s short story collection, and keep an eye out for any of her future work.
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