Louise Kennedy – In-Conversation
Louise Kennedy will be in conversation with the award winning author Timothy O’Grady, (‘I Could Read The Sky’, ‘Monaghan’). ‘STATIONS’ will be published in September 2026. Following this event Louise Kennedy will do a book signing and copies of the book will be available to buy at the ICC.
“STATIONS”
A devastating tale of love, friendship and the choices that shape our lives
In 1982, Róisín and Red meet as teenagers in their hometown in Ireland. Red’s reputation
for trouble might precede him, but Róisín finds in him an intelligent and funny – if unlikely – friend. When a brush with the law pushes Red into a corner, he escapes their town and his family for good to start a new life in England.
As the years pass, they grow up and apart. Despite Red’s particular gift for disappearing,
they remain tethered to one another, a fragile thread holding their once fierce friendship
together. When Róisín arrives in London to spend Christmas with her estranged father, she finds herself swept up once more into Red’s storm. Róisín longs for the closeness they once had, but Red continues to travel away from her – and as the past weighs on the present, Róisín wonders if she’ll ever reach Red where he is.
STATIONS is a devastating story of love and friendship, and the choices we blithely make
when we are young, unaware that the consequences will reverberate throughout our lives.
Doors: 7pm; Starts: 7.30pm
Tickets: £10 / £27.50 (pre-order the book with a ticket)
About Louise Kennedy
Louise Kennedy grew up a few miles from Belfast. She is the author of the acclaimed
short-story collection, ‘The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac’, which won the John
McGahern Prize. Her debut novel ‘Trespasses’ has been translated into over twenty
languages. A Sunday Times bestseller, it won the Book of the Year: Debut Fiction at the
British Book Awards, the McKitterick Prize and the Eason Novel of the Year at the An
Post Irish Book Awards. It was also shortlisted for several awards including the
Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Waterstone’s Debut Fiction Prize and Barnes and Noble
Discover Prize. In 2025, Trespasses was released as a limited TV series by Channel 4,
starring Lola Petticrew, Tom Cullen and Gillian Anderson. Before starting her writing
career, Kennedy spent nearly thirty years working as a chef. She lives in Sligo.
Photo Credit: ALEX KIRSCHBAUM
What The Press and People say….
‘Kennedy’s voice, and her unforgiving gaze, are electric’ Sunday Times
‘The novel was invented for writing like this’ Sunday Independent
‘Smart, propulsive, and emotionally powerful, this narrative is a transcendent exploration of yearning, transformation and rescue’ Min Jin Lee
Chosen as a ‘Book to Look out for in 2026’ across the press, including by the Guardian, Financial Times, BBC, Irish Times and Irish Independent
‘STATIONS is a beautiful novel about loss and being lost; at its centre is a brilliantly drawn
collection of found family’ Nick Hornby
‘I gulped this down – convinced, fascinated, and moved by every page’ Emma Donoghue, author of Room and The Wonder
‘Louise Kennedy can make your heart ache like few others – her magic lies in creating
characters who are warm, living, breathing, utterly real’. Lucy Caldwell, author of Devotions
‘A deeply moving portrait of love’s many faces, STATIONS is at once vivid and panoramic, an elegiac and clear-eyed exploration of intimacy in all its life-saving power and devastating limitations’ Colin Walsh, author of Kala
‘Takes hold from the first page, it’s all raw and it’s all true … I don’t think there has ever
been a better examination of Ireland’s relationship to London; a place to where the Irish
were often pulled by their ambition, or pushed by their regrets’. Garrett Carr, author of The Boy from the Sea
‘Funny, perceptive, carnal, laced with startling sentences and tremendously absorbing and revealing. Any time I was away from it I missed it’, Timothy O’Grady, author of I Could Read the Sky
‘What a beautiful book … STATIONS will live in my head for a long time to come’ Liz Nugent, author of Strange Sally Diamond
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