Following the death of her best friend, Erin has to get out of London. Returning home to Belfast, an au pair job provides a partial refuge from her grief and her volatile relationship with her mother. Erin spends late nights at the bar where her childhood friend Declan works. There Erin meets an American academic who is also looking to get lost. Parallel to this she reconnects with an old flame, Mikey. This brings its own web of complications. With a startlingly fresh and original voice - jarringly funny, cranky, often hungover - Lazy City depicts the strange, meandering aftermath that follows disaster.

Everyone Erin knows feels like an acquaintance. Back in Belfast after abruptly leaving graduate school, she numbly teeters through the aftermath of losing her best friend to an accident she doesn’t want to talk about. But it’s easy to get into a rhythm in the Lazy City; a simple housekeeping job provides refuge, as do evenings at a cocktail lounge where her friend tends bar and she drinks for free. In quick succession, she meets an American man who is looking to get lost, and falls back in with the local man who both comforts and confounds her. Suddenly, she finds herself wandering into churches, where, musing on these relationships—and her equally complicated relationship to faith—she gingerly confronts her grief. Written with mordant wit and surprising sympathy, Lazy City announces Rachel Connolly as an uncannily perceptive new voice for a city that “shows all its history, all its personality, all the time.”

Following the death of her best friend, Erin has toget out of London. Returning home to Belfast, anau pair job provides a partial refuge from her griefand her volatile relationship with her mother. Erinspends late nights at the bar where her childhoodfriend Declan works. There she meets an Americanacademic who is also looking to get lost. Parallelto this she reconnects with an old flame, Mikey.This brings its own web of complications. With a startlingly fresh and original voice - jarringly funny, cranky, often hungover - Lazy City depicts the strange, meandering aftermath that follows disaster.