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Tennis Lessons
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  • Published: 31 August 2021
  • ISBN: 9781784165055
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $29.99

Tennis Lessons

Formats & editions
Paperback
31 Aug 2021
EBook
16 July 2020
Audiobook
16 July 2020
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For fans of I MAY DESTROY YOU and ADULTS, readers who want to laugh, cry, gasp and nod along. The brilliantly brave and darkly funny story of a girl's tortuous and spectacular journey to womanhood, stopping at each year along the way.


From dead pets and crashed cars to family traumas and misguided love affairs, Susannah Dickey's revitalizing debut novel plunges us into the private world of one young woman as she navigates her rocky way to adulthood.


'I loved Tennis Lessons so much. Susannah is a phenomenally talented writer' ELIZABETH DAY

'A raw, fierce, shockingly honest coming-of-age story' LOUISE O'NEILL

'Incredibly funny . . . by turns charming and disgusting and I loved it' NELL FRIZZELL

You're strange and wrong. You've known it from the beginning.

This is the voice that rings in your ears. Because you never say the right thing. You're a disappointment to everyone. You're a far cry from beautiful - and your thoughts are ugly too.

You seem bound to fail, bound to break.

But you know what it is to laugh with your best friend, to feel the first tentative tingles of attraction, to take exquisite pleasure in the affront of your unruly body.

You just need to find your place.


'Brilliant . . . a wonderful writer, hugely talented, very funny and insightful' ALAN DAVIES

'Propulsive . . . brilliantly vivid . . . stays in the mind long after reading' IRISH TIMES

'A beautifully written and psychologically incisive bildungsroman...the arrival of a young writer to watch' OBSERVER
  • Published: 31 August 2021
  • ISBN: 9781784165055
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $29.99
Categories:

About the author

Susannah Dickey

Susannah Dickey grew up in Derry and now lives in Belfast. She is the author of two poetry pamphlets, I had some very slight concerns (2017) and genuine human values (2018). Her poetry has been published in Ambit, The White Review, Poetry Ireland Review and Magma, amongst others. In 2018 she was shortlisted for The White Review short story prize, and in 2017 she was the winner of the inaugural Verve Poetry Festival competition. Her debut novel, Tennis Lessons, will be published in June 2020.

portrait photo of Susannah Dickey

Also by Susannah Dickey

Common Decency
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Praise for Tennis Lessons

A fresh-eyed read. It's funny and honest, brutally so, and every so often sneaks up and punches you right in the guts. It's the kind of book you read in one furious sitting, then find yourself mulling over for weeks to come. Susannah Dickey's got a strange and sublime way of seeing the world.

Jan Carson

Recalling the grotesque of Christine Schutt and Deborah Levy, Susannah Dickey’s Tennis Lessons is an achingly vital novel, a work of blood and flesh, convulsing in the heat of mortality.

Kevin Breathnach

An incredibly funny and poignant portrait of what it is to be young, female and human. The whole thing is witty - the narrative voice, the dialogue, the plot and the detail - while also having searing moments of sadness, discomfort and cruelty. Susannah Dickey has created a world and a main character that is by turns disgusting and charming and I loved it.

Nell Frizzell

Tennis Lessons is a singular creation - a vivid, funny, emotionally intelligent dissection of an ordinary life.

Nicole Flattery

This is a raw, fierce, shockingly honest coming-of-age story. Tennis Lessons heralds the arrival of a startling new voice in literary fiction

Louise O'Neill

So compelling . . . darkly funny . . . a powerful account of a girl becoming a woman.

Hot Press

Gently comic and compassionate

Independent

A beautifully written and psychologically incisive bildungsroman...the arrival of a young writer to watch

Observer

Terrific... astute, tender, raw... very funny

Metro

Dickey scorchingly captures the awkward, aching longing of a misfit...shot through with honesty

Psychologies

Propulsive . . . brilliantly vivid . . . stays in the mind long after reading

Irish Times

elevating the ordinary with luscious prose . . . [Tennis Lessons] gives us the magical ability of seeing this tired old world with brand new eyes. What an invaluable gift, and what a beautiful book.

Culturefly

Wonderfully shocking . . . a stunning, original debut.

Irish Examiner

Fundamentally intimate . . . beguiling . . . A novel about being normal that is anything but.

Irish Independent

Effective and pacy.

Strong words

Absolutely brilliant . . . touchingly captures the awkward, aching longing of a misfit . . . darkly funny

Express

Brilliant . . . a wonderful writer, hugely talented, very funny and insightful.

Alan Davies

I loved Tennis Lessons so much

Elizabeth Day