Wednesday 16 September
6:30-9pm
Join us for a conversation between Brodie Crellin (A Sense of Occasion) and Nicola Dinan (Disappoint Me, Bellies).
About A Sense of Occasion:
Mary’s death is bad news – for her daughter Patch, ex-partner Robin, and niece Jude.
It will mean a funeral. But Patch can barely keep track of her mother’s journey from the hospital to the mortuary, let alone host a wake in her childhood home. Robin wants to support her, but instead of assuming the role of responsible father, he heads to his former haunt: the lay-by where he used to meet farmers for sex. Jude’s on her way from Naples, worrying less about Patch, her estranged cousin, and more about whether there’s a medicinal bag of cocaine in the boot. She hasn’t told the family she’s en route. This way, any lingering acrimony will be forgotten, and Jude’s past behaviour will be forgiven.
Thrown together in Mary’s tiny house, each of them is trying to feel something: to grieve, atone, join in, be better. But they rarely have one another’s best interests at heart, and as the connections between them twist and contort, they lose sight of the rules and grasp towards anything that might make it all less painful.
BRODIE CRELLIN lives in London and is an editor at Granta magazine. A Sense of Occasion is Brodie’s first novel.
NICOLA DINAN grew up in Hong Kong and Malaysia and now lives in London. Bellies, her debut, was nominated for six literary prizes and won the Polari First Book Prize. Disappoint Me, her second novel, won the New Adult Book Prize.