Colin Barrett is from County Mayo, Ireland. In 2009 he was awarded the Penguin Ireland Prize, and his debut collection of stories, Young Skins, won the Rooney Prize, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize, and The Guardian’s First Book Award. He was also a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35.” His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Stinging Fly, The New Statesman, Harper’s Magazine, and BBC Radio 4. In his second book, Homesickness (Grove Press), Barrett brings together eight character-driven stories, each showcasing his observant eye and darkly humorous style. This collection follows the lives of outcasts, misfits, and malcontents from County Mayo to Canada. A quiet night in a local pub is shattered by the arrival of a sword-wielding fugitive. A funeral party teeters between this world and the next, as ghosts won’t lay in wake. A shooting leads a veteran policewoman to confront the banality of her existence. An aspiring writer grapples with his father’s cancer diagnosis and, in his despair, wreaks havoc on his mentor’s life. The linguistic originality and sharply drawn portraits of working-class Ireland in his debut earned Barrett comparisons to Faulkner, Hardy, and Musil. Homesickness is an emotionally resonant and wry follow-up.
