Common Decency

In an apartment building in Belfast, two women wrestle with the sorrows and spectres of love and loss.

Since her mother's death, Lily has withdrawn from the world, trapped between grief and anger. She has to break out of this damaging cycle - but how?

Upstairs, Siobhán is consumed by her affair with a married man. Her days revolve around his sporadic texts and rare visits. She barely notices the strange girl who lives below and dawdles in the foyer.

But Lily is keeping a close eye on her neighbour, whose life seems so much better and more fulfilling than her own. When resentment evolves into something darker and more urgent, she decides to teach Siobhán a lesson...

From the critically acclaimed author of Tennis Lessons comes a darkly powerful novel about two lives running closely in parallel but divided by gulfs of misunderstanding. With boundless wisdom and deep empathy, Dickey charts the anonymity and hidden intimacies of modern existence, and our profound human need to connect.