Not one of these details proves insignificant in the course of this novel. He is posh, Protestant, married and a barrister. This nasty experience at the bar leads Cushla into a friendship with Michael Agnew. The title of the novel is both a synonym for ‘intrusions’ and a direct quote from the most penitential line of the Lord’s Prayer. It is a book that very delicately captures the everyday workings of oppressive judgement and its inseparable companion, shame. In terms of invasive behaviour this is the thin end of the wedge: in Louise Kennedy’s debut novel, no one is left alone, no business is private and no one goes unscrutinised. Within a few pages, one of the squaddies has ‘laid his hand on her hips, just above her arse’. To help out with the family business, a pub frequented by soldiers and Protestants, she works part-time as a barmaid. Cushla Lavery, the protagonist, is a young Catholic teacher living on the outskirts of Belfast in the mid-1970s.
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