Praise for Homesickness:
A Best Book of the Year from the New York Times and Oprah Daily
A New York Times Editors' Choice
“Shot through with dark humor, pitch-perfect dialogue and a signature freshness that makes life palpable on the page...Homesickness is graced with an original, lingering beauty.” — Stuart Dybek, New York Times Book Review
“With dark humor and lyrical expansiveness, Barrett’s second collection of stories captures the weirdness and beauty of seemingly ordinary lives.” — New Yorker, Best Books of 2022 So Far
“Many a writer claims mastery of technique, but few deliver at the level of Colin Barrett, whose roving perspectives, lopped-off endings and Kevin Barry-esque dialogue dazzle in his second collection…Barrett is a doyen of the sentence; each snaps and sings like a bullwhip. We know these people because we hear and see them in perfect clarity—they're not homesick so much as sick of home.” — Oprah Daily
“Superb…[T]here is an utterness to his attention, a devotion to the lives of his characters, that shifts the work into some more lasting place. Barrett is already one of the leading writers of the Irish short story, which is to braggingly say, one of the leading writers of the short story anywhere. He means every word and regrets every word. He just kills it.” — Guardian
“Colin Barrett…owns the domain of the short story….He writes what he knows, but he also writes to discover what he doesn’t know, a simple but crucial distinction you can sense instinctively, no matter how many of his compatriots you’ve already read.” — Los Angeles Times
“A beautiful and moving collection, from one of the best story writers in the English language today.” — Financial Times
“Homesickness is another finely crafted collection, again set largely on Barrett’s home turf of County Mayo, portrayed once more as a cauldron of alarming violence and simmering disappointment. Crisply told, fond of an eye-catching flourish… the stories draw energy from the rhythms of west of Ireland small talk, added to Barrett’s eye for striking detail…The scenarios are richly layered, with punchy payoffs.” – The Observer
“The eight sparkling, minimally plotted tales in [Barrett's] latest…foreground humour, and their author’s uncanny ear for dialogue and Irish vernacular.” — Globe & Mail
“Barrett’s stories are, without exception, beautifully written, full of arresting imagery.” – Booklist (starred review)
“Bittersweet and chiseled…From gritty realism to oddball noir, this assured collection demonstrates the talent of a distinctive writer.” — Publishers Weekly
“Richly descriptive…This sharply observant collection resists pigeonholing its recalcitrant characters.” — Kirkus Reviews
“If there is any concern about the health of the short story in the next generation of Irish writers, Colin Barrett's Homesickness: Stories, his second collection, should help put that to rest. Like novelist Sally Rooney, Barrett is well-attuned to the attitudes and preoccupations of mostly younger Irish men and women, though his subjects are markedly dissimilar to the highly educated, intensely verbal characters in Rooney's work.… Characters like these may be humble, but there's nothing unimpressive about their portrayal in these thoughtful, well-wrought tales.” — Shelf Awareness
“Barrett’s mostly dogged characters live hardscrabble lives, and in this strong second collectionnot a repeat actreaders become involved in the simple but crucial issue of how they will manage.” — Library Journal
“This is a mesmerizingly powerful book, full of the strangeness and beauty of life. I've learned so much from Colin Barrett’s work as a reader and writer, and I think these stories are his best yet.”—Sally Rooney
“A masterwork—by turns hilarious and heart-breaking, these stories shimmer. No story writer at work today thrills me more than Colin Barrett, whose characters feel immediately so familiar and true in their capacity to maim and love. What fierce, tender stories. Totally unforgettable.”—Brandon Taylor
“Something struck me as I read these beautifully crafted, desperately sad, but often very funny stories: there is now a branch of English called the Colin Barrett.”—Roddy Doyle
“The stories in Homesickness are crafted with skill and flair. Colin Barrett anchors the work with emotional accuracy and careful delineation of character, and then, using metaphors and beautifully made sentences, he lets his narrative soar.”— Colm Tóibín
“These are addictive, stylish and violently funny stories, with riches on every page—an outstanding collection.”—Kevin Barry
“With a sharp eye for the absurd in the ordinary, Barrett's stories impart gritty and touching realisations about life as it really is. Edgy, sharp and utterly original, Homesickness is an utterly compelling collection and Barrett is meticulous.”— Elaine Feeney
“Homesickness presents us with a set of characters forever losing things: other people’s dogs, girlfriends, the will to live…Between the comedy, and the pure thrill of the language, there’s a lot of sorrow and mental illness here, but the afterglow of the stories, which settle and stay with you, is one of moving regard for the flaws and wants we battle, flee, and bargain with every day of our lives.”—Chris Power
2022-03-10
Eight richly descriptive stories examine the various textures of disappointment in families and communities where success is not the norm.
The stories in Barrett’s second collection, set in present-day Ireland and Canada, reveal a different sort of malaise than the title might suggest: Their characters are not so much longing for home as sickened by a place of psychological damage and, frequently, senseless violence. In the opening story, “A Shooting in Rathreedane,” that violence, as well as Barrett’s pitch-dark sense of humor, is on full display, as police officers in County Mayo head out to a farm to investigate the shooting of a young miscreant, “one of those prolific, inveterately small-time crooks who possessed real criminal instincts but no real criminal talent,” and who this time around was attempting to siphon oil from an empty fuel tank. Barrett nimbly balances the pathos of the situation with its troubling ridiculousness. “The Alps,” set during an increasingly drunken evening at a country football clubhouse, stretches out to include not just the three “shortish” brothers sporting the “bloodshot eyes, pouched necks and capitulating hairlines of middle age” whose nickname gives the story its title, but the whole community of drinkers in the bar and the mysterious sword-wielding stranger who invades their space. The collection’s long concluding story, “The 10,” watches dispassionately as waves of disappointment ripple outward from a young man, once a potential football star and now selling cars at his father's Nissan dealership, into the lives of his family, friends, and girlfriend. The fine distinctions of social class in his community are as clearly noted as the protagonist's subtle changes of mood. Barrett's playfully extravagant language makes the depressing stories more palatable even as it distances the reader from the plights of the characters.
This sharply observant collection resists pigeonholing its recalcitrant characters.