The Art of the Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories
Published on 22nd March 2021
There have been many anthologies of the short story as it developed in Ireland, but never a collection like this.
The Art of the Glimpse is a radical revision of the canon of the Irish story, uniting classic works with neglected writers and marginalised voices – women, LGBT writers, Traveller folk-tales, neglected 19th-century authors and the first wave of 'new Irish' writers from all over the world now making a life in Ireland. Sinéad Gleeson brings together stories that range from the most sublime realism to the downright bizarre and transgressive, some from established literary figures and some that have not yet been published in book form.
The collection draws on a tremendous spectrum of experience: the story of a prank come good by Bram Stoker; Sally Rooney on the love languages of the new generation; Donal Ryan on the pains of ageing; Edna O'Brien on the things we betray for love; James Joyce on a young woman torn between the familiar burdens and oppression of her home and the dangerous lure of romance and escape; and the internal monologue of a woman in a coma by Marian Keyes. Here too are vivid and less familiar stories by Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi, Oein De Bharduin, Blindboy Boatclub and Melatu Uche Okorie.
Here are my thoughts on my three favourite stories from The Art of the Glimpse. I reckon 'Ann Lee’s' by Elizabeth Bowen must be the best bull-in-a-china-shop story ever written (without either a china shop or a bull) but rather a posh ladies’ hat shop into which, horror of horrors, steps a man!
Rosa Mulholland’s, 'The Hungry Death', had me in fits of laughter at the treasure trove of Irishisms like: musha, ashtoreen, and avourneen machree. However, my amusement soon turned to horror. I really should have paid better attention from the get-go to the title.
'Transmission', by Blánaid McKinney made me incredulous from beginning to end; the female character seemingly knowing so much about car components. But that's just me.
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Submitted by Brian R. from Home Delivery Service.