In the Event of Contact

"These are characters who are desperate to feel, and Rohan’s keen sensitivity to the many textures of longing and loss bring their exquisite stories to life." —Arianna Rebolini, BuzzFeed "[Rohan's] work is imbued with the empathy of faith, with pain and heartbreak but not cynicism or despair. Her stories of hard-won resilience are welcome reading in these challenging times." —Rene Ostberg, U.S. Catholic Magazine "In the Event of Contact is a timely read about the importance of connecting with other people on our own terms." —Evette Dionne, BITCH Magazine Selected Feminist Reads for May, 2021 "In the Event of Contact is one of 2021's must-read collections." —BUSTLE “With In the Event of Contact, Rohan explores the literal edges of the human experience—what we desire to bring into contact with our bodies, and just as importantly, what we don’t. She counts herself among the excellent women writers who continue to unflinchingly explore the realm of the body, and through this lens, infuse the short story form with a pervasive loneliness and ambient anxiety that mirror the uneasiness of our times: authors like Carmen Maria Machado, Roxane Gay, Ottessa Moshfegh, Sarah Rose Etter, Amber Sparks, and Sara Lippmann. Add Ethel Rohan’s name to that list.” —Joe Kapitan, The Rumpus “Through her brilliant storytelling, Rohan explores the deep desire for human relationships, and the physical or psychological distances that affect them.” —Emily Park, Booklist “Social distancing marked the lonely horror that was this year; paradoxically a demonstration of how affection and empathy for our fellow humans required us to retreat into ourselves, connection now defined by the absence of contact. Ethel Rohan’s book of short stories examines something similar in its evocation of what connection or its lack can do to us. In the Event of Contact is a loving homage to humanity in all its complexity.” —The Millions "Cultures merge, too, in the collection, Rohan’s meticulously crafted stories reflecting emigration and identity struggles on top of clashing relationships...In the Event of Contact reverberates with this ultra-personal stake, made palpable in the cultures, characters, and relationships woven into its earnest, artful, and heartfelt stories." —J.A. Tyler, Ploughshares Magazine "A striking collection about loners." —Publishers Weekly “The stories straddle the faultlines of the lives of their characters and as a collection quietly and subtly accumulate a potency that by the end leaves the reader breathless.” —Tadhg Carey, The Westmeath Independent “Rohan’s plain prose helps to feature the emotional earthquakes these characters undergo while they’re navigating ordinary happenings, and her masterful use of Irish lilts and rhythms helps to reveal intricate emotional distances between those who left and those who stayed behind, even as it nestles the reader deep into her characters’ hearts and minds.” —Elaine Chiew, Foreword Reviews "Rohan excels in the movement of characters, positioning them as efficiently as a stage manager. She knows at precisely which scene the Peters and the Dohertys of the world should enter, and she understands the limited space she is working with. This control ensures that her stories are never at a loss for momentum...Rohan captures the emigrant experience for what it is, a process of becoming an alien in two countries — and as glad as her characters might be that they left, they understand that everywhere has become, in some way, a separate world, in which there will still also be men." —Connor Harrison, Necessary Fiction "Much of [Rohan's] work deals in the difficult, but it is of the emotional, spiritual sort—the prose itself flows swift, clear and beautiful, with the musicality of her literary ancestors, and also with ripples of something completely her own." —Alex Capdeville, Scoundrel Time "In each story, Rohan’s prose shines with deft eloquence, depicting her characters with compassion, leavened by insight." —Paul Wilner, Nob Hill Gazette