By Terry Kenneally
This months Off The Shelf column reviews two recent short story collections by two of Ireland’s most acclaimed writers, Edna O’Brien and Colm Toibin. Both of their books were finalists for the Frank O’Connor Short Story Award, the first time two Irish authors made the final cut in the same year. On 16 September 2011, the award was given to Edna O’Brien for her short story collection, Saints and Sinners.
Her stories are about ordinary Irish men and women, not embellished with ornament but simple stories told in O’Brien’s rich prose style. Sinners is a simple, stunning story of a woman’s stunted interior life, brought into focus when a visiting family at her bed-and-breakfast reveal their easy intimacy which leaves her enthralled, yet repelled.
“Madame Cassandra” features a married woman desperate to know if her husband has fallen in love with a “buxom young convent girl,” young enough to be her granddaughter. She seeks out the advice of a fortune teller but is rebuffed in her effort when the fortune teller refuses to answer her door having just met with the convent girl on a similar question.
In “Manhattan Medley,” an Irish woman living in New York City begins an affair with a married English architect. The story sizzles with sensual intensity despite her friends’ attempts to discourage the liaison.
In “Black Flower” a woman strikes up a relationship with a released Republican prisoner. Though free, the man fears that he will always be wanted. The woman who taught him painting in prison wrestles with the horrific details of the man’s past as the two share a peaceful county lunch.
The Empty Family
By Colm Toibin
Scribner; ISBN 978-1-4391-3832-8; 2011; 275 pp.
Colm Toibin’s collection is equally stunning in its portrayal of people linked by love, loneliness, and desire. The opening story, “Silence” is based on an incident in the life of Henry James, an American born writer who Toibin featured in his award winning novel, The Master. The story centers on Lady Gregory the Irish poet and playwright. Seated next to James at a dinner, and knowing that he enjoys being entertained with anecdotes which he can draw upon in his work, Lady Gregory creates a fiction of her own by relating a story of a long ago love affair over which she still suffers.
In “Two Women” an arrogant set designer from Los Angeles returns to Dublin, where a stranger’s resemblance to the only man she ever loved, but lost, topples her off her pedestal and brings her back to her former lover’s sphere.
In “The Street,” Toibin’s focus is on the relationship between two gay Pakistani immigrants living in Barcelona, as they face the fears of others finding out about their relationship and the insecurity which flows from their fears of having to be returned to their native country.
This writer rates both books as TOP SHELF reads.
*Terrence J. Kenneally is the president of Terrence J. Kenneally & Associates Co. in Fairview Park, Ohio. His practice consists of representing insured’s and insurance companies in insurance defense litigation throughout Ohio. He is presently pursuing a Masters Degree in Irish Studies at John Carroll University. He can be reached at
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