Dolores

On a hot day in late June, a young girl kneels outside a convent, then falls on her face. When the nuns take her in, they name her Dolores.

Dolores adjusts to the rhythm of her new life - to the nuns with wild hairs curling from their chins, the soup chewed as if it were meat, the bells that ring throughout the day.

But in the dark, private theatre of her mind are memories - of love motels lit by neon red hearts, discos in abandoned hospitals and a boy called Angelo.

And inside her, a baby is growing.

“Dolores is a glowing, beating heart of a book; Curtis' sentences manage to be both mysterious and precise, creating a potent atmosphere that resonates beyond its brevity Dolores reads the way a first novel should: short, lyrical, intense, and with adventurous ambition Rich, melodic and marked by a troubling sensuality, Dolores depicts the strange pleasures a young girl might take in her body, and the perils and liberations such pleasures hold A succinct, intense story ... this atmospheric debut is a deliciously satisfying read about a girl at a critical juncture in her life - BookRiot Dolores is propulsive, atmospheric, wonderfully peculiar, a little dark. A dreamy hallucination Precise, intense and aching, Dolores moves seamlessly between sensuality and realism. I read it in a couple of fevered hours and lived in its heady atmosphere for days afterwards. Short and mysterious, Dolores is a compelling, one-sitting read ... Curtis writes the close-up details of life in the convent with as much intensity as the burgeoning sexuality of a young girl, and the two elements chime in a strange harmony - Observer Blurring the borders past and present, sex and religion, desire and shame, Lauren Aimee Curtis's debut novel Dolores is a short and potent story of a young woman in trouble - Irish Times”

Dolores is a glowing, beating heart of a book; Curtis' sentences manage to be both mysterious and precise, creating a potent atmosphere that resonates beyond its brevity

Dolores reads the way a first novel should: short, lyrical, intense, and with adventurous ambition

Rich, melodic and marked by a troubling sensuality, Dolores depicts the strange pleasures a young girl might take in her body, and the perils and liberations such pleasures hold

A succinct, intense story ... this atmospheric debut is a deliciously satisfying read about a girl at a critical juncture in her life - BookRiot

Dolores is propulsive, atmospheric, wonderfully peculiar, a little dark. A dreamy hallucination

Precise, intense and aching, Dolores moves seamlessly between sensuality and realism. I read it in a couple of fevered hours and lived in its heady atmosphere for days afterwards.

Short and mysterious, Dolores is a compelling, one-sitting read ... Curtis writes the close-up details of life in the convent with as much intensity as the burgeoning sexuality of a young girl, and the two elements chime in a strange harmony - Observer

Blurring the borders past and present, sex and religion, desire and shame, Lauren Aimee Curtis's debut novel Dolores is a short and potent story of a young woman in trouble - Irish Times

Lauren Aimee Curtis was born in Sydney. Her first book, Dolores, was shortlisted for the Readings Prize, the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, and was selected as a New Statesman Book of the Year. She has written for Granta, The White Review and Sydney Review of Books, among other publications. In 2023, she was named one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists.

On a hot day in late June, a young girl kneels outside a convent, then falls on her face. When the nuns take her in, they name her Dolores.Dolores adjusts to the rhythm of her new life - to the nuns with wild hairs curling from their chins, the soup chewed as if it were meat, the bells that ring throughout the day.But in the dark, private theatre of her mind are memories - of love motels lit by neon red hearts, discos in abandoned hospitals and a boy called Angelo.And inside her, a baby is growing.

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