“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 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.
