If Susannah Dickey's debut novel teaches us anything, it is that the interior of the seemingly mundane can be the most mysterious world of all. But while Tennis Lessons might be the latest novel by an alarmingly talented twentysomething Irish woman to chart the thorny early years of womanhood, the Sally Rooney comparisons end there. Had Richard Linklater's Boyhood been about an Ulster girl and presented in prose format, it might have resembled Tennis Lessons. There are dark passages, as there are in the lives of too many young women, when wolves are encountered and things are taken from her. You'd be reluctant to pin a theme on to something as naturalistic as this beguiling and rather brilliant book.

Source: Irish Independent July 18, 2020 01:39 UTC