Excerpt from Trouble the Living by Francesca McDonnell Capossela, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Go on," he said. "Give us a nip, won't ya?"

I got the bottle from the cabinet and poured a splash into his cup. Enough to calm his shakes.

"Thanks a mill." He grinned at me a little guiltily. A look that made me feel uncomfortable and complicit.

Da's entrance always shocked me in how it changed the structure of our house. The walls seemed to shrink, the ceiling to descend around him. I felt claustrophobic, cramped. My body felt like it was attached to his by invisible threads, so that with every tiny movement—his jaw clenching or relaxing, the turn of his head, the thud of his steps—my own body was tugged into reacting.

It was the deepest kind of empathy, being afraid. When Da was drunk, we were all off-balance, unsteady on our feet. When he woke hungover, we were all sensitive to light and noise, wincing at nothing. It was how we knew when to duck or cower, when to go up to our rooms. We playacted his state of mind so we would know when to run.

"What are you doing up so early?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said. "Only I couldn't sleep."

"I heard voices."

"Sure it was only the TV."

"Go back to bed, then." His voice was gruff. "I've got to get ready for work."

I remembered how curious I'd been about his work as a child, begging him to take me to the customs station with him. He had once, and I'd perched on a stool he dragged into his cubicle for me. I was patient and quiet while he hummed over paperwork, his back slumped. I'd felt victorious, seeing a part of him that the rest of my family were strangers to. Holding his hand while he led me through the staffroom. But that was back before Ma sent Enda to fetch Da at the pub most nights. Back before the gin blossoms had bloomed along his nose.

He was telling me to leave. I turned and began to climb back up the staircase.

"It hardly matters now," he said, and I turned around.

"What does?" I asked.

"All that fighting. It'll be over any minute. They'll be talking peace before the New Year."

He grinned as he said it, showing three missing teeth. When he was twenty-two, a British dentist had removed them without anesthesia. Some sort of practical joke. Some sort of sadism. It didn't make him angry, his gaping mouth. It made him ashamed.

"You really think that?" I asked. "You think the RA'll give up without a united Ireland?"

On the television, in the newspapers, everyone was discussing the prospect of peace. Sinn Féin, under the leadership of swears-he'd-never-been-an-IRA-man Gerry Adams, was said to be in talks with the British and Irish governments. The IRA had declared ceasefires and then broken them, declared ceasefires and then broken them. The newspapers made it sound easy, like all we needed was the right frame of mind. But by arguing for peace, I knew, they were arguing for the status quo. For all their talk, we hadn't seen any changes. British officers still raided our neighbors' homes; young men still blew themselves up with car bombs. If we did not win this war, we would lose it.

"Ach get outta here," he said, gesturing for me to leave. "You sound like your bloody mother."



Back in my room, Ma stood in the doorway. She looked like a specter in the half-light, her black dressing gown shapeless. Behind her, Ina's bed was empty.

"Was that Conor I heard?" Her voice cut in the early morning.

"Da's getting ready for work," I said. I passed her and moved into my room.

She followed me in and sat in the rocking chair that faced my bed. I hated that chair. The monotony of her movement in it. She could sit there for hours, moving back and forth. It made me seasick.

"Did you give him the bottles so?"

I looked at her.

"Aye, I gave him the bottles."

She smiled. "Good girl." The phrase had been gratifying when Conor used it; on her lips, it grated.

Excerpted from Trouble the Living by Francesca McDonnell Capossela. Copyright © 2023 by Francesca McDonnell Capossela. Excerpted by permission of Lake Union Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.