Devotions - by Lucy Caldwell (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A striking new collection from Lucy Caldwell--winner of the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, and the BBC National Short Story Award

"Throughout her eight stories, her touch is so light, her observations so perceptive, her dialogue chattering off the page, that she more than underscores her reputation as one of the best practitioners of the short-form craft."--Financial Times

In Devotions, "one of the finest short story writers at work today" (Wendy Erskine) explores yearning for distant pasts and unknown futures. A young Belfast theatre troupe brings their experimental production of Hamlet to New York. On a night-flight, travelling with a violin older than the United States, a professional musician slips through time. A man who loses all he thought he had, and finds himself haunted by all he never will, comes to a painful new understanding of what it might mean to love. Transporting and profound, these are stories of love, grief, longing, of new beginnings, and the ways we find shelter in each other.

Review Quotes

"Introspective and wide-ranging...There's much to admire in these nuanced stories."--Publishers Weekly

"Throughout her eight stories, her touch is so light, her observations so perceptive, her dialogue chattering off the page, that she more than underscores her reputation as one of the best practitioners of the short-form craft."--Susie Mesure, Financial Times

"I am in awe of Lucy Caldwell's exquisite ability to parachute her readers right into another human mind, into their very thoughts and desires. In Devotions, the vividness of her vision carried me away again and again. This is literature to return to, both rich and compelling, remarkable stories that will be held beloved for years to come."--Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of The Ghost in the Throat

"[Caldwell] holds the reader right up against the tender humanity of her characters."--Eimear McBride, author of The City Changes Its Face

"Caldwell writes with such sensitivity and humanity, and always encourages us to rethink what we already know."--Elif Shafak, author of The Island of Missing Trees

"These are stories which sing off the page, full to bursting with the small joys and sorrows of everyday life. Lucy Caldwell knows how to take a tiny moment and spin it into an epic."--Jan Carson, author of Quickly, While They Still Have Horses

"It takes a writer as subtle, compassionate and clear-eyed as Caldwell to track the hidden forces that work upon us, to illuminate our secret selves."--Claire Kilroy, author of Soldier Sailor

"A mature and rare and rich writer."--Tessa Hadley, author of Late in the Day

"Like her countrymen William Trevor, John McGahern and Colm Toibin, she excels at vocalising the unsaid."--Times Literary Supplement

"One of our best short story writers."--The Times (UK)

PRAISE FOR THESE DAYS, one of NPR's Best Books of 2025

"Adroit, precise storytelling, atmospheric and satisfying; These Days is a novel of real substance."--Hilary Mantel, Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall

"Intertwined with vivid descriptions of the horrific collateral damage in the city itself are intersecting narratives that remind us how persistently the dramas of daily life can exist even when the world is in flames."--Alida Becker, The New York Times

"Lucy Caldwell so beautifully balances a book that feels intimate and deeply personal, as if you're reading someone's diary, with the greater historical resonance of this very real chapter of World War II."--Shannon Rhoades, NPR

About the Author

Born in Belfast in 1981, Lucy
Caldwell is the author of four
novels, several stage plays
and radio dramas, and three
previous collections of short
stories. Elected a Fellow of
the Royal Society of Literature
in 2018, she was also the
editor of Being Various: New
Irish Short Stories in 2019,
and has won the E. M. Forster
Award, from the American
Academy of Arts and Letters,
and the Walter Scott Prize
among others.