In the Movie of Her Life

As inquisitive and inspiring as one has come to expect from a Claire Hennessy book, and yet somehow even moreso, a voice of pure fury, passion and humour; we’re lucky to have a writer like this in our midst

- Alice Kinsella, author of Milk (Picador)

Pitch-dark, razor-sharp. Keenly observed and compelling, the reader has the sense of being confined to an artfully constructed prison cell they won’t want to leave.

- Deirdre Sullivan, author of I Want To Know That I Will Be Okay (Banshee Press)

There is love, then there is let-down. There is blind acceptance of one’s lot, then there is a deep, hidden license to howl down the waiting room and expose the surgery of life for the big dirty lie that it is. At last: relatable modern spiky topics, written with laser-tool precision, exposing, common wounds. Slick-dark, narky in part, and side-splittingly funny.

- June Caldwell, author of Room Little Darker (New Island)

…her tales flow like arresting, fitful dreams. You effortlessly insert yourself into the situations she has created and at least seven could potentially grow into their own books. They are offbeat, provocative and sardonically witty. At times, they can be rather scary: wait until you get to Colony.

- Sophie Grenham, The Irish Times

What struck me particularly was the originality of Claire’s voice and her uncompromising observations about the emotional shifts that we often find difficult to admit to, let alone describe with such a cool, unflinching eye… Running through all this work is a seam of honesty whose impact has stayed with me.

- Catherine Dunne, author of A Good Enough Mother (BeTimes Books)

A gritty collection of imaginative writing and devastating observation… Claire Hennessy’s debut adult fiction short story collection is sparky with mostly contemporary (and some futuristic) stories… It’s dark in places with an understanding that not everything works out well in the end. … [‘The Last Party’] is a chilling tale, displaying Claire Hennessy’s imaginative powers in this varied collection.

- Colette Sheridan, The Irish Examiner

This is short story writing with teeth. Elegant but unsparing and laced with dark humour - the kind that makes you laugh before making you wince. Hennessy has a rare talent for nailing the quiet devastations of modern life. The jobs that drain you, the friendships that rot, the relationships that curdle in real time. Her characters are messy, human and deliciously flawed women who don’t know what they want until it’s already slipping through their fingers, or worse, sitting in their lap… What makes Hennessy’s work so electric is that she doesn’t tidy things up. There are no neat resolutions, no easy catharsis. She lets her characters sit in the mess, forces us to watch them squirm. The result is a collection of stories that is fearless and alarmingly real.

- Lorraine Courtney, The Irish Independent