Skilled portraits in miniature set in Dublin and London: masterful character sketches by one of Irelands most observant writers. Although these are separate stories, they form chapters in a mans life. He knows the characters in Dublin, the West of Ireland, London, provincial England and they know him. His descriptions are intimate, sympathetic but their lives are sharply drawn. A young Muslim woman moves to a Dublin Street; a married man meets a married woman to make up for a failed night of their youth; a London woman keeps a window open to remind herself that suicide is available. Through each story the overarching narrator also becomes clearer: we see the tension between who he is and the pull of what might have been. As conclusions bring opposites together, in this book, Time is the great character.
These are timeless, classic Irish short stories in the vein of William Trevor and Brian Friel, poised and carefully observed vignettes of the lives that compose modern Ireland.
Adrian Kenny was born in Dublin in 1945, and educated at Gonzaga College and University College Dublin. He has worked as an English teacher in Ireland and abroad, and as a freelance journalist. He is the author of The Feast of Michaelmas (novel, 1978), Arcady (stories, 1983), Before the Wax Hardened (autobiography, 1991), Istanbul Diary (1994), The Family Business (1999) and Portobello Notebook (2012). He has also published an edition of the journals of Arland Ussher, and a translation of the 18th century Gaelic poet An Caisideach Ban. He is a member of Aosdįna.
