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jackieeh's review
4.0
"Sisters" was excellent, as were "Breakfast For Enrique" and "Cathal's Lake."
Yay for Irish and Irish-American people and angst.
Yay for Irish and Irish-American people and angst.
mlindner's review
2.0
2019 DPL Author! Author! author.
After a bare start and getting hung up in the middle of the second story, I finally picked it back up, skipped to start of third one and managed to get through the rest, finishing the morning of the author's talk.
I think it is the style that I'm not a fan of, as the characters and situations I am fine with as a subject of literature. YMMV.
After a bare start and getting hung up in the middle of the second story, I finally picked it back up, skipped to start of third one and managed to get through the rest, finishing the morning of the author's talk.
I think it is the style that I'm not a fan of, as the characters and situations I am fine with as a subject of literature. YMMV.
jaymoran's review
5.0
I absolutely adored this book. McCann's writing was delicious to read, perfectly crafted with not a single word out of place or without purpose. Short story collections tend to be hit and miss, but I cannot think of a single story that I didn't love. My particular favourites were The Sisters, A Basket Full of Wallpaper, Through the Field, A Word in Edgewise, and, possibly my favourite, Cathal's Lake. Please read this book. Thank you, Andrea for introducing me to Colum McCann.
expendablemudge's review
3.0
Rating: 3.75* of five
The Publisher Says: The short fiction of Colum McCann documents a dizzying cast of characters in exile, loss, love, and displacement. There is the worn boxing champion who steals clothes from a New Orleans laundromat, the rumored survivor of Hiroshima who emigrates to the tranquil coast of Western Ireland, the Irishwoman who journeys through America in search of silence and solitude. But what is found in these stories, and discovered by these characters, is the astonishing poetry and peace found in the mundane: a memory, a scent on the wind, the grace in the curve of a street. Fishing the Sloe-Black River is a work of pure augury, of the channeling and re-spoken lives of people exposed to the beauty of the everyday.
My Review: Twelve stories written by an Irish-by-Irish-American talent whose work garnered praise from no less a short story luminary than Edna O'Brien. Justly so, may I add.
These are stories that go down easy, slipping into the eyes with no great effort and causing the brain no hiccups. Then, an hour later, why are they repeating like uncooked garlic? Because, dear readers of them, you've been *snookered*!
McCann's characters are delineated deftly, his settings established economically, and his stories told without fuss. But the end result is more than the sum of its parts. An example, decribing Flaherty the Irishman living in New Orleans, from "Step We Gaily, On We Go":
A washed up has-been boxer, Flaherty? Or a never-was dreamer? A lonely old man, surely, but why? What happened here? This is my favorite story in the collection, and I use it as an example of what I think McCann does best: He gives you the picture, and lets you decide what interests you most about it. Most short stories aren't that good, frankly, because they're just exactly the wrong length to do anything well, except in the hands of the talented.
"Cathal's Lake", the final story in the collection, is my runner-up favorite and would be even if only for its first line: "It's a sad Sunday when a man has to dig another swan from the soil." Cathal, a dirt farmer of no notable qualities, and his dog Wingnut are spending their morning digging up swans, see, and Cathal's mind (such as it is) wanders into some strange reveries...soldiers in battle, teen toughs in battle..."All this miraculous hatred. Christ, a man can't eat his breakfast for filling his belly full of it." It's sad to say that this is an evergreen trope in our world, this mindless exploration of anger and hate in calm and peace. It's a good story.
It's a good collection. I'd recommend it to anyone whose desire is to see *just enough* of a story and a character and a setting to get the story, but still want to hear the tale.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The Publisher Says: The short fiction of Colum McCann documents a dizzying cast of characters in exile, loss, love, and displacement. There is the worn boxing champion who steals clothes from a New Orleans laundromat, the rumored survivor of Hiroshima who emigrates to the tranquil coast of Western Ireland, the Irishwoman who journeys through America in search of silence and solitude. But what is found in these stories, and discovered by these characters, is the astonishing poetry and peace found in the mundane: a memory, a scent on the wind, the grace in the curve of a street. Fishing the Sloe-Black River is a work of pure augury, of the channeling and re-spoken lives of people exposed to the beauty of the everyday.
My Review: Twelve stories written by an Irish-by-Irish-American talent whose work garnered praise from no less a short story luminary than Edna O'Brien. Justly so, may I add.
These are stories that go down easy, slipping into the eyes with no great effort and causing the brain no hiccups. Then, an hour later, why are they repeating like uncooked garlic? Because, dear readers of them, you've been *snookered*!
McCann's characters are delineated deftly, his settings established economically, and his stories told without fuss. But the end result is more than the sum of its parts. An example, decribing Flaherty the Irishman living in New Orleans, from "Step We Gaily, On We Go":
Give life long enough and it will solve all your problems, including the one of being alive. Should write that one on the stairwell, he chuckles to himself as he shuffles down the rat-gray steps of the apartment complex. He walks slowly, his big shoulders pitching back and forth in the folds of an old brown overcoat. Thick fists, blotched here and there with liver spots, pop out from the cuffs and a magenta handkerchief sprouts from the breast pocket. Beads of sweat gather beneath the peak of his flat tweed cap as he negotiates the corner on the third floor. Damn, he thinks, it's hot under this whole rigout.
A washed up has-been boxer, Flaherty? Or a never-was dreamer? A lonely old man, surely, but why? What happened here? This is my favorite story in the collection, and I use it as an example of what I think McCann does best: He gives you the picture, and lets you decide what interests you most about it. Most short stories aren't that good, frankly, because they're just exactly the wrong length to do anything well, except in the hands of the talented.
"Cathal's Lake", the final story in the collection, is my runner-up favorite and would be even if only for its first line: "It's a sad Sunday when a man has to dig another swan from the soil." Cathal, a dirt farmer of no notable qualities, and his dog Wingnut are spending their morning digging up swans, see, and Cathal's mind (such as it is) wanders into some strange reveries...soldiers in battle, teen toughs in battle..."All this miraculous hatred. Christ, a man can't eat his breakfast for filling his belly full of it." It's sad to say that this is an evergreen trope in our world, this mindless exploration of anger and hate in calm and peace. It's a good story.
It's a good collection. I'd recommend it to anyone whose desire is to see *just enough* of a story and a character and a setting to get the story, but still want to hear the tale.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
derekouyang's review
4.0
A powerful collection of tragedy-torn vignettes from Ireland. There's a bit of a dull rhythm through most of the same, but every now and then there's a touch of magic in the characters that is incredible to read. I'll be following this author more carefully now.
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