First Fiction

Ingrid Fallon is a high school student at St. Vincent’s Academy in Shreveport, Louisiana, and a world away from the troubles in Northern Ireland. That will soon change as she travels to spend the summer of 1981 with relatives in Belfast. It is the time of the hunger strikes and an epoch when Ingrid will fall in love and suffer loss for the first time. But will she ever overcome the troubles that haunt the life she will return to in Shreveport? At school, she has witnessed the mistreatment of the few African-American students in attendance. At home, she has had to repress the overtures of a reprobate uncle. Alone, she has struggled with confidence in navigating how to behave amid teenager cliques. Ingrid’s experiences in Northern Ireland will prove to be a catalyst for her own empowerment. She will return to Louisiana unafraid of facing both the prejudiced and her personal demons. In dramatic fashion, she will conquer both.