Taking sides

An across-enemy-lines love story set in the Irish Troubles is fraught with tension.

- JOSIE SHAPIRO

Louise Kennedy: vividly evokes the civil-wartorn landscapes of Northern Ireland.

TRESPASSES, by Louise Kennedy (Bloomsbury, $32.99)

In a village outside Belfast in 1975, during the dark days of the Troubles, it doesn't matter what you do, only what you are: in Trespasses, Louise Kennedy's debut novel, love and good intentions matter little - it's your identity that determines your fate.

Young school teacher Cushla Lavery works in the family pub once the school day ends, and it's here she meets Michael Agnew, an attractive, much older, civilrights barrister. Their ensuing affair is only one of the novel's trespasses that might never be forgiver Because not only is he married, he's Protestant, and she's Catholic. In a country where sectarian violence dominates the news, and the young children in Cushla's class know words like "nitroglycerine", "gelignite" and "the Special Powers Act”, their love's a bomb waiting to explode.