Following the death of her best friend, Erin has to get out of London. Returning home to Belfast, an au pair job provides a partial refuge from her grief and her volatile relationship with her mother. She spends late nights at the bar where her old friend Declan works, and there Erin meets an American academic who is also looking to get lost. Her unlikely, secretive relationship with religion offers a different kind of sanctuary altogether.

Lazy City explores coming of age in a place where everyone is picking up the pieces and belongs to a generation that, at the precipice of climate crisis, isn’t going to get the future it was expecting. A startlingly fresh and original voice – jarringly funny, sometimes cranky, often hungover – Rachel Connolly sharply depicts the strange, meandering aftermath that follows disaster.

Rachel Connolly was born in 1993 in Belfast and now lives in London. She has written for the New York Times, New York Magazine, the Guardian, and many other publications. She has also featured as a guest to discuss her work on This American Life and several BBC radio programs.