Tea for the Rent Boy

by Helen Lynch

An outstanding collection of stories from a unique and unforgettable voice of women s contemporary fiction. A young girl talks to the elderly owner of a dilapidated house her parents are buying, and is shocked by the woman's revelation of her father's suicide. A woman, holidaying in a convent in the Pyrenees, reassesses her affair after an encounter with an elderly couple. Travelling by ship with her family to a new life, a woman's acceptance of an offer of babysitting could lead to tragedy. A woman still maintaining an on-off relationship with her former partner realises she has more in common with the rent boy who works outside their flat than she first thought. An exceptional literary stylist, Lynch's prose in this, her second story collection, fizzes with energy, as she explores themes of immigration, war, displacement, patriarchy, misogyny, family and parenthood. Tea for the Rent Boy confirms her position as one of the country's outstanding writers of short fiction, a deeply humane chronicler of universal female experience.

176 pages, Paperback

Published May 10, 2018

Reviews

[Eden Bowditch]

There are few authors who are this deft at bringing the voice of her characters to life. You can- LITERALLY (and I mean it!)- feel as if you are hearing the voices of each character. Glimpses into lives and moments in time are full of flavor, sound, and presence. Her short stories drag you into the page, like Ottessa Moshfegh, but are not always do utterly dire and destitute of compassion and empathy.

[Lexie Conyngham]

A book of stunning short stories – you never know what you’re going to meet in the next one. Some of them are disturbing, distressing, and complex, and some just feel like a hug, but all are beautifully observed, a constant, steady, sympathetic probing into the innermost thoughts and memories of the characters. You feel you know them well.