Free Therapy

A collection that shows us ourselves as we truly areA collection that shows us ourselves as we truly areAN IRISH TIMES 2024 DEBUT WRITER TO LOOK OUT FOR'A major new talent' I'So precise and articulate' SUNDAY TIMESTwo teenage girls fixated on each other's bodies enter into a destructive competition; a woman's encounter with her ex forces her to reflect on the women's group that saved her; a couple's future is called into question after the damp expert they hire for their bathroom offers them free counselling; an older man's buried grief emerges during an altercation with a mother driving a 4 4; and over the course of a bitter winter a waitress lacks the money to fix an impacted tooth as the cracks begin to show in her precariously balanced life.Free Therapy takes us into the inner lives of women and men who are versed in the language of therapy, possessed with the self-knowledge needed to change their lives, but finding themselves unwilling to doing so. As her characters try and fail to connect - via sex, friendship, screens and work - Rebecca Ivory explores desire in all its forms, revealing the ways in which we posture and present, and the softness and insecurities that lie beneath.Perfectly observed, wry and illuminated by moments of sympathy and wisdom, Free Therapy shows us ourselves as we truly are.'Arresting and inventive' SALLY ROONEY'Her writing feels so fresh' PANDORA SYKES

Arresting and inventive -- Sally Rooney, author of Normal People
A major new talent i
Wincingly funny and winningly honest Daily Mail
In her debut short-story collection, Rebecca Ivory has taken all the tiny humiliations of life and made something so precise and articulate that it can feel mortifying to read... A short story collection that feels apt Sunday Times
I ate it up in two sittings. Beneath these stories runs a pulsing darkness, a restless humour, a palpable and astute distrust. Here are all the ways we scam each other, but most of all ourselves -- Saba Sams, author of Send Nudes
The stories in Free Therapy are unerring, ferociously original, cooly controlled and queasy with revelation. They live viscerally in you for days afterward -- Colin Barrett, author of Homesickness
Prepare to feel the hot wind of humiliation, via a series of vivid short stories. This debut collection from a smart young writer turns a keen eye on uncertain and untrustworthy relationships Daily Telegraph

Rebecca Ivory was born in 1993 and is a writer based in Dublin. Her short fiction has appeared in the Stinging Fly, Banshee, Tangerine and Fallow Media. In 2020, she was awarded a Literature Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland. Free Therapy is her debut.

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