Oisín McKenna

Evenings and Weekends

Genre

Literary Fiction

UK Publication

Fourth Estate, HarperCollins, 2024

Film/TV

Optioned

US Publication

Mariner, HaperCollins, 2024

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Blurb

Summer in London stops for no-one. Not the half-naked boozers, stoners, and cruisers, the hen parties glugging from bejewelled bottles, the drag queens puffing on hurried fags. It’s June 2019, and everyone has converged on the city’s parks, beer gardens and street corners to revel in the collective joys of being alive.

Everyone but Maggie. She’s 30, pregnant and broke. Faced with moving back to the town she fought to escape, she’s wondering if having a baby with boyfriend Ed will be the last spontaneous act of her life. Ed, meanwhile, is trying to run from his past with Maggie’s best friend Phil and harbouring secret dreams of his own.

Phil hates his office job and is living for the weekend, while falling for his housemate, Keith. But there’s a problem: Keith has a boyfriend and there might not be room for three people in the relationship. Then there’s Rosaleen, Phil’s mother, who’s tired of feeling like a side character in her own life. She’s just been diagnosed with cancer and is travelling to London to tell Phil, if she can ever get hold of him.

As Saturday night approaches, all their lives are set to change forever. It’s the hottest summer on record and the weekend is about to begin…

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Press and Reviews

“This vivid realist novel adroitly manoeuvres a sprawling interlocking cast around the hipster haunts of north and east London…It utters a howl of rage at broken,…”

– The Guardian

“A bit like the book version of a Richard Curtis film, but with more grit, more bathroom sex and a literal beached whale.”

– GQ

“McKenna’s book captures what it feels like to be worn out bythe constant calculations, and adjustments and uncertaintiesthat so often underpin a London life.”

– The Independent

“A passionate and thought provoking quintessentially London story that fizzes and sparks with desire… This is the book we predict is going to be a word…”

– GLAMOUR

“Reading Evenings and Weekends is reading a love letter to London: its backstreets, its parties, its specific brand of people. McKenna captures the atmosphere of a…”

– Jenny Mustard, author of Okay Days

“This book is so sumptuous and gorgeous and perfect it makes my heart hurt. I literally can’t do any work cause I need to keep reading…”

– Annie Lord, author of Notes on a Heartbreak

“Sexy, clever and shockingly alive—I couldn’t put it down. I was fascinated by the mix of zeitgeisty humour, wisdom, and existential angst. I have never read…”

– Tomasz Jedrowski, author of Swimming in the Dark

“This is such a love story to cities & people & heartbreaks, death & loss. It's not at all corny, it's smart. But I just finished…”

– Eileen Myles

“A masterpiece: this searing tale of class, love and sex will resonate for generations to come”

– Owen Jones

“One of the most promising spoken word artists in the country, who avoids misty-eyed accounts of society and instead cuts through with brilliant observational political commentary.”

– Irish Times