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Revision as of 07:49, 17 September 2020
, 07:49, 17 September 2020no edit summary
|reviewer=Paul Curd
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=This collection of short stories by the double Booker -shortlisted novelist is beautifully written and each story is full of atmosphere, often with Toibin's typical sense of loss and longing, of 'sad echoes and dim feelings'. The majority of the stories are five-star gems but there are one or two that don't quite come off, which affects the overall rating. A very good read nevertheless.
|rating=4.5
|buy=Yes
'Silence' reintroduces us to some familiar Toibin characters. The story's protagonist, Augusta Gregory, was the real-life muse to W B Yeats and the subject of Toibin's 2002 essay ''Lady Gregory's Toothbrush''. The story itself springs from an extract from the notebooks of the subject of his 2004 Booker-shortlisted novel ''The Master'', but given a subtle twist by Toibin.
In 'The Two Women' an aging ageing movie set-dresser returns to Ireland from America to work on a film, longing to be home before she arrives and becoming instantly miserable on her arrival in what seems like alien territory. Her time back home gives occasion for recollections of the great love of her live, recollections that are given added poignancy by an unexpected encounter on the film set in Wicklow.
There's a lot of graphic gay sex in a number of these stories, but often there's a point to it in the context of the story. In 'The Pearl Fishers' Toibin uses the famous duet from the Bizet opera as the inspiration for this tale of triangular love and friendship, with the twist that the friends are also the lovers. The scenes set in a Wexford boarding school leave little to the imagination but are a key element in the plot. Similarly, the relationship that develops between two of the characters in the long final story 'The Street' has a necessary physical element that Toibin handles well.
Toibin is strongest when he is exploring the complexity of family relationships, and the bitter-sweet sense of nostalgia for the 'home' that his protagonists usually had a good reason to leave. It is because many of these stories dwell on that familiar mix of emotions that this is such a good collection.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag. We also have a review of [[New Ways to Kill Your Mother by Colm Toibin]].
Further reading suggestion: If you haven't read it already, you really must read Colm Toibin's [[Brooklyn by Colm Toibin|Brooklyn]]. If it's more great short stories you want then try [[The Collected Short Stories of Lydia Davis by Lydia Davis|The Collected Short Stories of Lydia Davis]]. You might also enjoy [[Ghosts and Lightning by Trevor Byrne]].
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