Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »
Sat 03 Mar 2009A tale of cloister and heart
FICTION:The Love of SistersBy Eugene McCabe New Island, 112pp. €13.99 - THE LONG and the short of the novella form is that it has always defied definition. Though it has been with us in various guises since the middle ages and has occasionally flourished within national traditions and in the hands of individual practitioners, it has rarely had a confident reputation.
Currently, the only certain thing about the novella is its uncertain saleability. That underestimated commentator on the craft and selling of fiction, Stephen King, in his introduction to his own novella collection Different Seasons, famously lamented its seeming status as “an ill-defined and disreputable literary banana republic”.
Choose a Subscription type - required
