Memphis Barker

Lives of Others

Young Skins

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Jonathan Cape 175pp £14.99 order from our bookshop

Leaving the Sea

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Granta Books 261pp £16.99 order from our bookshop

Things to Make and Break

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CB editions 206pp £8.99 order from our bookshop

Colin Barrett’s debut collection, which last month won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, is a triumph. We are mostly in Glanbeigh, a decrepit Irish town whose elemental properties seem to be pebble dash, dried blood, lipstick and drink. But the final scenes take pleasure in shifting the ground beneath the reader, leaving him or her with one foot in a different place.

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