Nicole Flattery

Loaded with dark humour and chock-full of style, Show Them A Good Time marks the arrival of an exuberant and strikingly original new writer.

In Nicole’s stories a returned emigrant struggles to get her life back on track in the grim little town she previously couldn’t wait to leave; two beleaguered students take to the stage in a desperate bid to assert their autonomy; a school teacher gamely keeps on searching for love or distraction as the world teeters towards ruin. The characters in these magnificently accomplished stories are haunted as much by the future as they are by their pasts.

Demands repeated reading. These stories are very funny, and very sad, usually at the same time. Which, as Flattery shows us brilliantly, is the best time.” Jon McGregor

“The eight stories in the collection have a snappy, wry humour to them. Think early Lorrie Moore, or here at home, the stories that launched Anne Enright’s career.” The Irish Times