High standards in a high place

SHORT STORIES: HEATHER INGMANreviews New Irish Short StoriesEdited by Joseph O'Connor Faber and Faber, 404pp. £9.99

WHAT MAKES a good short story? It's a question often asked by readers, critics, creative writing teachers, not to mention writers themselves. The short story is a notoriously tricky form to pin down. Chekhov argued that everything in the short story should be focused on the ending, Frank O'Connor talked about a crisis or turning point, while Mary Lavin defined the short story as "an arrow in flight". Perhaps we should leave it that a good short story reveals itself. Or, in the words of Anthony Glavin's narrator in One of Those Stories, published in this volume, "something in their configuration – in how they work themselves out – seems to speak, however briefly, to the heart of the matter. To stuff like loss, longing, love, or mortality". A good story, he adds, comes to feel like our own.

There are plenty of good stories in this volume. Kevin Barry's near-perfect tragi-comic tale of the Real Ale Club's July outing, Beer Trip to Llandudno, fairly skips along, its lively dialogue concealing considerable artistry and recalling the Irish story's roots in the oral tradition. "Be artists of the normal," advised Michael McLaverty, "it is the normal that survives, and it comes from exploring the resources of your own people and your environment – no matter how small the latter is, if it is deeply pondered the resultant work will overleap its boundaries." The slow, meditative pace of William Trevor's The Crippled Man, of Colm Tóibín's The News from Dublinand of Richard Ford's Leaving for Kenosha, conveys a sense of each word being worked over by these masters of the form. They repay equally careful attention from the reader in order to savour the truths, about loneliness and poverty, about fear and shame, about fathers and daughters, that open these stories out to what is universal in human experience, as McLaverty suggested a good story should.

Though the title of this volume is New Irish Short Stories, Joseph O'Connor explains in his introduction that he has not been overly concerned with "passport requirements". There are stories set in Ireland and stories set elsewhere, stories by writers born in Ireland but now living abroad and stories by writers several generations away from Ireland. Some of the protagonists, such as William Trevor's Martina or Colm Tóibín's Maurice have lived their entire lives in Ireland. Others, such as the Russians in Eoin McNamee's Handmade Wings, are new arrivals. Yet others, such as Dermot Bolger's Eva and Christine Dwyer Hickey's Frank, have lived elsewhere but have had their lives shaped by Ireland.

This stretching of the term Irish may provoke complaints from some readers but, for this reader, the collection was much enriched by the inclusion of Richard Ford's migration story, Leaving for Kenosha. Born in Jackson, Mississipi, in 1944, Ford's Irish grandparents emigrated from Co Cavan to America in the 1890s. In Leaving for Kenosha, set against the devastation in New Orleans after Hurricane Katerina, Irish readers may find resonances with our own situation. Devastation is devastation, whether perpetrated by nature or by bankers, and the pain of emigration is the same whatever the country. Leaving for Kenoshareveals how, to return to the words of Anthony Glavin's narrator, a good story can come to feel like our own, "reminding us that some, if not all, of what we've lost and found has been known by others, and in the telling or listening life can come to feel a bit less like a game of solitaire". The short story's antennae are often sharper than the novel's. Gerard Donovan's Festus, Roddy Doyle's Animalsprovide initial glimpses into what it feels like to be living through these recessionary times and suggest that what matters above all is our capacity to show kindness to one another.

The volume is dedicated to David Marcus to whose energy and commitment the strength of the short story in Ireland owes much. Through the pages of the Irish PressMarcus tirelessly championed new and high quality short story writing and his annual anthologies of New Irish Writing showcased emergent writers alongside more established names. Joseph O'Connor remains faithful to the spirit of Marcus's Faber anthologies by including writers at various stages of their careers. Alongside such internationally recognised names as William Trevor, Richard Ford, Colm Tóibín, Emma Donoghue, Roddy Doyle and Joseph O'Neill and such established writers as Dermot Bolger, Colum McCann, Glenn Patterson, Eoin McNamee, and Mary Morrissy, are writers such as Kevin Barry and Kevin Power who are in the process of becoming recognised and some completely new names, among whom Elaine Walsh stands out as particularly promising with her story, Midnight Blue, set in a Dublin tailor's shop. It's good to see that Faber remains committed to the Irish short story and one hopes there will be more of these volumes in the future.

Naturally, with a volume such as this, the writing varies in quality. Some stories would have benefited from more shaping, in others the message is too explicit. One is reminded just how much this slight form needs working on to achieve its effects. Mary Lavin’s first drafts often extended to more than 100 pages, which she eventually pruned to 20 or less. The inclusion of a couple of stories that are extracts from forthcoming novels seems a pity as this plays on the belief that the story is a limbering up for the novel rather than a completely different form. Arranging the authors alphabetically is a wasted opportunity to shape the collection.

In his introduction, Joseph O’Connor reveals that there were a number of authors who didn’t feel ready to submit their work to the public. This speaks of high standards. We may be ashamed of some of our bankers and our politicians but, like Shakespeare’s “good deed in a naughty world”, this volume proves that one thing we needn’t be ashamed of is the quality of Irish writing.

Heather Ingman is Adjunct Professor in the School of English, Trinity College, Dublin. Her History of the Irish Short Storywas published by Cambridge University Press in 2009