“This is such a love story to cities & people & heartbreaks, death & loss. It's not at all corny, it's smart. But I just finished it & it made me cry.” — Eileen Myles
"Signals the arrival of a novelist sure to resonate with young people who endeavor to make intimate connections." —The Washington Post
"Like the book version of a Richard Curtis film, but with more grit, more bathroom sex and a literal beached whale." —GQ
For fans of Sally Rooney and Torrey Peters, a stunning debut that follows a vibrant multi-generational cast of characters through a London heatwave as their simmering tensions and secrets come to a head over a feverish, life-changing weekend.
Summer in London stops for no one. Not the half-naked drunks and stoners, the bachelorette parties glugging from bejewelled bottles, the drag queens puffing on hurried cigarettes. It’s June 2019, and everyone has converged on the city’s parks, beer gardens, and street corners to revel in the collective joys of being alive.
Everyone but Maggie. She’s 30, pregnant, and broke. Faced with moving back to the town she fought to escape, she’s wondering if having a baby with boyfriend Ed will be the last spontaneous act of her life. Ed, meanwhile, is trying to run from his past with Maggie’s best friend Phil and harboring secret dreams of his own.
Phil hates his office job and is living for the weekend, while falling for his housemate, Keith. But there’s a problem: Keith has a boyfriend and there might not be room for three people in the relationship. Then there’s Rosaleen, Phil’s mother, who’s tired of feeling like a side character in her own life. She’s just been diagnosed with cancer and is travelling to London to tell Phil, if she can ever get hold of him.
As Saturday night approaches, all their lives are set to change forever. Temperatures are soaring and the weekend is about to begin…
Strikingly heartfelt, sexually charged, and disarmingly comic, Oisín McKenna’s debut is a mesmerizing dive into the soul of a city and a searing look at what it takes to build a life there.
Genre: Literary Fiction
"Signals the arrival of a novelist sure to resonate with young people who endeavor to make intimate connections." —The Washington Post
"Like the book version of a Richard Curtis film, but with more grit, more bathroom sex and a literal beached whale." —GQ
For fans of Sally Rooney and Torrey Peters, a stunning debut that follows a vibrant multi-generational cast of characters through a London heatwave as their simmering tensions and secrets come to a head over a feverish, life-changing weekend.
Summer in London stops for no one. Not the half-naked drunks and stoners, the bachelorette parties glugging from bejewelled bottles, the drag queens puffing on hurried cigarettes. It’s June 2019, and everyone has converged on the city’s parks, beer gardens, and street corners to revel in the collective joys of being alive.
Everyone but Maggie. She’s 30, pregnant, and broke. Faced with moving back to the town she fought to escape, she’s wondering if having a baby with boyfriend Ed will be the last spontaneous act of her life. Ed, meanwhile, is trying to run from his past with Maggie’s best friend Phil and harboring secret dreams of his own.
Phil hates his office job and is living for the weekend, while falling for his housemate, Keith. But there’s a problem: Keith has a boyfriend and there might not be room for three people in the relationship. Then there’s Rosaleen, Phil’s mother, who’s tired of feeling like a side character in her own life. She’s just been diagnosed with cancer and is travelling to London to tell Phil, if she can ever get hold of him.
As Saturday night approaches, all their lives are set to change forever. Temperatures are soaring and the weekend is about to begin…
Strikingly heartfelt, sexually charged, and disarmingly comic, Oisín McKenna’s debut is a mesmerizing dive into the soul of a city and a searing look at what it takes to build a life there.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Zadie Smith-esque in its kaleidoscope of London. Compassionate, intelligent, hilarious." - Niamh Campbell
"A novel brimming with life, confronting the difficult and ugly with a fresh and charming levity." - Nicola Dinan
"Full of life and rings with passion and hope. A brilliant study of the sins of modern Britain and the energy of contemporary London." - Soula Emmanuel
"Sexy, clever and shockingly alive. I couldn't put it down. I have never read a book that captures what London feels like to young people quite so compellingly." - Tomasz Jedrowski
"A love letter to cities and people and heartbreaks. It made me cry." - Eileen Myles
"The aching, swelling humanity of this book swallowed me whole." - Saba Sams
"I was entirely consumed by it. McKenna's characters are so deeply truthful that I'm half-convinced I was there too, on that hot, sweaty weekend in 2019." - Kate Young
"A novel brimming with life, confronting the difficult and ugly with a fresh and charming levity." - Nicola Dinan
"Full of life and rings with passion and hope. A brilliant study of the sins of modern Britain and the energy of contemporary London." - Soula Emmanuel
"Sexy, clever and shockingly alive. I couldn't put it down. I have never read a book that captures what London feels like to young people quite so compellingly." - Tomasz Jedrowski
"A love letter to cities and people and heartbreaks. It made me cry." - Eileen Myles
"The aching, swelling humanity of this book swallowed me whole." - Saba Sams
"I was entirely consumed by it. McKenna's characters are so deeply truthful that I'm half-convinced I was there too, on that hot, sweaty weekend in 2019." - Kate Young
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Used availability for Oisin McKenna's Evenings & Weekends