Multitudes - by Lucy Caldwell (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

An Irish Times Best Irish Book of the 21st Century

From Belfast to London and back again, the eleven stories in Lucy Caldwell's acclaimed first collection chronicle the heartache, joy, and tenderness of growing up.

"[Caldwell] holds the reader right up against the tender humanity of her characters." --Eimear McBride, author of The City Changes Its Face and The Lesser Bohemians

With lives caught in the suspense of transition--between city and country; between the crowd and the out; between home and escape; between love and loneliness--Multitudes culminates with the heart-wrenching and unforgettable title story, as a young woman goes through her first labour and the traumatic days that follow.

Deeply affecting, intimate and yet resonant, these are stories that squeeze right into the fractures that end up shaping the course of lives.

Review Quotes

"Beautifully crafted, and so finely balanced that she holds the reader right up against the tender humanity of her characters." --Eimear McBride

"A writer of rare elegance and beauty, Caldwell doesn't just get inside her characters' minds. She perches in the precarious chambers of their hearts, telling their stories truthfully and tenderly." --Independent

"Lucy Caldwell's first short-story collection is largely rooted in her native Belfast and points up aspects of the city - not the Troubles ... but a rawness and an intolerance of difference ... Taken together, the stories are a survey of the threats faced by women from childhood through to childbirth." --Guardian

"Heartfelt ... makes for an emotional read." --Stylist

"Caldwell captures every last sob and spew in a book redeemed by its underlying resilience and exhilarating vividness." --Sunday Times

"A clear, calm voice in your ear." --Anthony Cummins, Telegraph

About the Author

Born in Belfast in 1981, Lucy Caldwell is the author of four novels, several stage plays and radio dramas, and three previous collections of short stories. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018, she was also the editor of Being Various: New Irish Short Stories in 2019, and has won the E. M. Forster Award, from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Walter Scott Prize among others.