The Empty Room (32 page)
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“Unflinching and unsentimental,
The Empty Room
charts a day from hell in the life of Colleen Kerrigan, alone, nearly 50, and spiralling into yet another alcoholic binge. It is a credit to the brilliance and humanity of novelist Lauren B. Davis that, even in this nightmare, we find utter truth, wicked humour and just enough hope to keep on reading.”
—
LAWRENCE HILL, author of
The Book of Negroes
“
The Empty Room
is a rare act of courage—every page a brilliant, defiant examination of desire, loss, sorrow, triumph and grace. My heart will not soon forget this book.”
—
AMI McKAY, author of
The Birth House
and
The Virgin Cure
“This is a raw, exciting book—alcoholism from deep inside the jaws of death and denial. To call it ‘honest’ is a disservice: it is scalding.”
—
BHARATI MUKHERJEE, author of
Desirable Daughters
and
Miss New India
“In
The Empty Room
, Lauren B. Davis has given us an honest, brave account of self-destruction, one that harrowingly reminds us that recovery from the abyss of alcoholism is never easy, but eloquently hints at what is possible when the self-deception and denial end.”
—
LINDEN MacINTYRE, author of
The Bishop’s Man
and
Why Men Lie
“Soaked in alcoholism and addiction, this story plumbs the bottomless human genius for self-deception and our singular talent for wandering into hellholes of our own design. Lauren B. Davis writes deftly, never averting her gaze—and never letting go of the fact that threads of grace lie always within our grasp.”
—
ALAN CUMYN, author of
The Famished Lover
and
The Sojourn
Our Daily Bread
An Unrehearsed Desire
The Radiant City
The Stubborn Season
Rat Medicine & Other Unlikely Curatives
The Empty Room
Copyright © 2013 by Lauren B. Davis.
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EPub Edition © APRIL 2013 ISBN: 9781443418317
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
FIRST EDITION
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
All the characters in the following pages are entirely fictional creations and do not represent any actual person, living or dead.
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