Mr Lynch’s Holiday

Author(s): Catherine O'Flynn

Location(s): Almería (Almeria), Costa del Sol

Genre(s): Fiction

Era(s): Modern

Location

Content

‘I’m looking forward to seeing you and Laura and getting my first taste of “abroad”.’

Eamonn Lynch stares at the letter announcing the imminent arrival of his father, Dermot. His first thought is: I’ll make an excuse, I’ll put him off. But it is too late. Dermot is already here, in southern Spain, and soon he’ll discover that Eamonn lives in an unfinished building site: that Laura’s left him: and that it’ll be just the two of them, father and son, for two long, hot weeks.

Dermot doesn’t entirely recognise his son: how can he stay quite so long in bed? And where is Laura? Eamonn doesn’t seem to know quite what to make of his father’s arrival. On the other hand his neighbours – pushy and domineering Roger and Cheryl, smug but disillusioned property developers Becca and Ian – see in Dermot a respite from themselves.

Swept up in the British expats’ ceaseless barbecuing and bickering, both father and son slowly discover the truth about each other and the family past. But at the same time they uncover a shocking, unacknowledged secret at the heart of this defiant but beleaguered community.

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