Devotions - by Lucy Caldwell (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A striking new collection from Lucy Caldwell, winner of the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, and the BBC National Short Story Award.

"There must be moments when we let go - let go of all that we do, all that we are."

In Devotions, "one of the finest short story writers at work today" (Wendy Erskine) explores yearning for distant pasts and unknown futures.

A young Belfast theatre troupe brings their experimental production of Hamlet to New York.

On a night-flight, travelling with a violin older than the United States, a professional musician slips through time.

A man who loses all he thought he had, and finds himself haunted by all he never will, comes to a painful new understanding of what it might mean to love.

Transporting and profound, these are stories of love, grief, longing. of new beginnings, and the ways we find shelter in each other.

Review Quotes

"It takes a writer as subtle, compassionate and clear-eyed as Caldwell to track the hidden forces that work upon us, to illuminate our secret selves." Claire Kilroy

"A mature and rare and rich writer." Tessa Hadley

"[Caldwell] holds the reader right up against the tender humanity of her characters." Eimear McBride

"Like her countrymen William Trevor, John McGahern and Colm Toibin, she excels at vocalising the unsaid." Times Literary Supplement

"One of our best short story writers." The Times (UK)

PRAISE FOR THESE
DAYS, one of NPR's Best Books of 2025

"Adroit, precise storytelling, atmospheric and satisfying; These Days
is a novel of real substance." Hilary Mantel,
Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall

"Intertwined with vivid descriptions of the horrific collateral damage in
the city itself are intersecting narratives that remind us how persistently the
dramas of daily life can exist even when the world is in flames." Alida Becker, The
New York Times

"Lucy Caldwell so beautifully balances a book that feels intimate and
deeply personal, as if you're reading someone's diary, with the greater
historical resonance of this very real chapter of World War II." Shannon Rhoades,
NPR