Life Without Children: Stories - Softcover

Doyle, Roddy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593300580 ISBN 13: 9780593300589

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2023

Synopsis

"[Doyle] imparts a sense of poignancy and glimpses of happiness, of grief and loss and small moments of connection . . . you're left feeling close to dazzled." --Daphne Merkin, New York Times Book Review

A brilliantly warm and witty portrait of our pandemic lives, told in ten heartrending short stories, from the Booker Prize-winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

Love and marriage. Children and family. Death and grief. Life touches everyone the same. But living under lockdown, it changes us alone.

In these ten beautifully moving short stories written mostly over the last year, Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle paints a collective portrait of our strange times. A man abroad wanders the stag-and-hen-strewn streets of Newcastle, as news of the virus at home asks him to question his next move. An exhausted nurse struggles to let go, having lost a much-loved patient in isolation. A middle-aged son, barred from his mother's funeral, wakes to an oncoming hangover of regret.

Told with Doyle's signature warmth, wit, and extraordinary eye for the richness that underpins the quiet of our lives, Life Without Children cuts to the heart of how we are all navigating loss, loneliness, and the shifting of history underneath our feet.

About this title

About the Author

Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. He is the author of ten acclaimed novels, including The Commitments, The Van (a finalist for the Booker Prize), Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (winner of the Booker Prize), The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, A Star Called Henry, The Guts and, most recently, Smile. Doyle has also written several collections of stories, as well as Two Pints, Two More Pints, and Two for the Road, and several works for children and young adults including the Rover novels. He lives in Dublin.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593300580
• ISBN 13: 9780593300589
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192