Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Most Anticipated Books of 2025!

BookBrowse Reviews The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac by Louise Kennedy

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Beyond the book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac by Louise Kennedy

The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac

Stories

by Louise Kennedy
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (13):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • First Published:
  • Dec 5, 2023, 304 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Dec 2024, 304 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Reviews

BookBrowse:


Fifteen slice-of-life stories that paint vivid, uncompromising pictures of contemporary Ireland.

Most of the stories in Louise Kennedy's debut collection follow women through the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Relationships, mortality, womanhood, loyalty, and memory are all placed beneath the microscope as we move throughout the collection, almost as though we are drifting around the titular cul-de-sac, glimpsing the loves, losses, hopes, and sorrows playing out behind each door.

An exact timeframe is never made clear, but one story, "Silhouette," stands out for being the only to make specific reference to the realities of life in the wake of the Troubles. In it, we see a young woman coming of age, wrestling with her love for her brother and the knowledge that he killed a man during the conflict that ruled the streets. Though the other stories rarely deal with subject matter this overtly political, several explore the theme of women attempting to live in a society that seethes with latent anger and a simmering threat of violence. Take "Hunter-Gatherers," for example, where a man is determined yet misguided in his attempts to live off the land. In a display of power and performative violence, he needlessly kills a wild hare, despite knowing his partner adores watching it: "There was a treacly hole at the front of his head, his eyes were hazel and still." The frank yet oddly lyrical prose in moments like this creates a sense of how normalized death and destruction have become under a cloud of modern toxic masculinity. Loss, for this generation of women, is simply a way of life.

The stories are often bleak in concept and narrative. While this can make them tough going if consumed as a whole, many offer subtle glimmers of hope, be it through deadpan humor, hard won resilience, or hints of possible change to come.

The rugged beauty of the Irish landscape forms a solid backdrop for the vast majority of the stories, as in the following quote from "Garland Sunday":

"The hillside sliced down toward the road, shorn like a lawn by the sheep that clung to it. In front of her, over fields and bog and a silver lake, were the hills of three counties. Behind her, the wind was blowing through the caves."

This sense of place is so well drawn that the instances in which the action strays outside of Ireland can feel slightly jarring. Still, there is never a feeling that any of the stories are filler. To maintain a consistently high standard across such a lengthy collection is impressive, but Kennedy pulls it off.

A couple of entries stand out as highlights: "Garland Sunday" and "Brittle Things." In the former, we look at the repercussions of a couple's decision to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. In the latter, we follow the mother of a non-speaking autistic child, as she attempts to simultaneously shield and nurture him in a world he finds overwhelming. To do so, she must navigate the frustrations of daily life, grapple with misplaced guilt, overcome her husband's denial about their son's condition, and face the constant pity of her friends and neighbors. Throughout the book at large, there is a sense of the weight held by words that go unspoken. This idea is presented most literally and poignantly in these two stories.

In a depiction that is direct and unflinchingly real, Kennedy brings a universal relatability to the notion that we all must trudge on in the face of life's melancholies. For this reason, almost every reader is likely to connect with the quiet struggles of at least one character found within The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac.

Reviewed by Callum McLaughlin

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in January 2024, and has been updated for the January 2025 edition. Click here to go to this issue.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book:
  Abortion in Ireland

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac, try these:

  • The Alternatives jacket

    The Alternatives

    by Caoilinn Hughes

    Published 2024

    About This book

    More by this author

    From the writer Anthony Doerr calls "a massive talent," the story of four brilliant Irish sisters, orphaned in childhood, who scramble to reconnect when the oldest disappears into the Irish countryside.

  • So Late in the Day jacket

    So Late in the Day

    by Claire Keegan

    Published 2023

    About This book

    More by this author

    From Booker Prize Finalist and bestselling author of "pitch perfect" (Boston Globe) Small Things Like These, comes a triptych of stories about love, lust, betrayal, and the ever-intriguing interchanges between women and men.

We have 4 read-alikes for The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Wager
    by David Grann
    From the bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a gripping story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth.
Book Club Giveaway!
Win Help Wanted

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

From the best-selling author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. comes a funny, eye-opening tale of work in contemporary America.

Enter

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Going Home
    by Tom Lamont

    Going Home is a sparkling, funny, bighearted story of family and what happens when three men take charge of a toddler following an unexpected loss.

  • Book Jacket

    The Secret History of the Rape Kit
    by Pagan Kennedy

    The story of the woman who kicked off a feminist revolution in forensics, and then vanished into obscurity.

  • Book Jacket

    Beast of the North Woods
    by Annelise Ryan

    When a local fisherman is mauled to death, it seems like the only possible cause is a mythical creature.

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

T the L

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.