If London has its Hampstead novel of middle-class adulterers, Belfast is developing its own distinctive genre, the Botanic Avenue novel where young people come to regret moving back to the city. Following Michael Magee’s Close to Home and Susanne Dickey’s Common Decency (perhaps the grandaddy of the genre is Fat Lad by Glenn Patterson), Lazy City by Rachel Connolly shares a setting with these novels but also a tone and theme, ‘Do you ever worry that you’re just waiting for a better part of your life to start?’ as Common Decency asks. It’s a sign of the recent burst of literary talent in Northern Ireland that all three novels are distinctive and engaging.
Erin moves back to Belfast from London mourning the death of her best friend and finds a job as an au pair for Anne Marie, who has separated from her husband. She discovers that ‘there aren’t enough pubs for anyone to avoid old ghosts’ and quickly starts seeing her former boyfriend, Mikey, while also sleeping with an American academic, Matt, who has just arrived in Belfast. The Belfast she has returned to ‘is a place with no early mornings. No late nights in the office. No productivity. No burnout. No late capitalism’ Its distinctive atmosphere is founded on its economic decline, ‘there’s less opportunities here than other places. But it’s cheaper to live here.’ Though, the lack of ambition is also the product of a city recovering from The Troubles, ‘post-conflict is when everyone is just trying to get on with their lives.’ Lazy City follows Erin as she sorts out how to mourn her friend, comes to terms with her past, ‘It’s forgiveness that’s truly complicated’, and discovers through an acceptance of religion that ‘it was all endless. Possibilities, choices, life.’ It’s a crowded novel but, fuelled by a character as sardonic and confused as any created by better known writers (Sally Rooney, say), it’s hard to see how anyone could manage not to read it in two or three bursts.
Matt the American observes that comedy ‘is a very raw form of storytelling’, and Rachel Connolly writes with a comic timing and biting observation that is sophisticated and challenging. The comedy arises from the disorientation of ‘this feeling of trying to plan around so many variables, and the ways I might possibly feel’ while deepening the characterisation of Erin. As Lazy City progresses, we discover how Erin’s friend Kate died, her difficult relationship with her mother and an understanding of what lies behind that. Matt says of Belfast, ‘It has kept a sense of itself’ and that is central to Lazy City’s success. It’s a study of how the city feeds into Erin’s personality, drifting through this phase of her life, while exploring her resilience and determination to build a better future, even if that begins with ‘my own room is a shared house. To my new temporary data entry job.’
Any Cop?: The description of Belfast in Lazy City is impossible to separate from the characterisation of Erin. Belfast is described as ‘This is a place which shows all its history, all its personality, all the time’ and the same can be said of Lazy City, witty, bracing and unforgettable.
James Doyle
Bookmunch 