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Stories
by Louise Kennedy
Book Reviewed by:Brilliant, dark stories of women's lives by "a very major talent" (Joseph O'Connor, Irish Times)
In these visceral, stunningly crafted stories by the author of the much-acclaimed Trespasses, women's lives are etched by poverty—material, emotional, sexual—but also splashed by beauty, sometimes even joy, as they search for the good in the cards they've been dealt.
A wife is abandoned by her new husband in a derelict housing estate, with blood on her hands. An expectant mother's worst fears about her husband's entanglement with a teenage girl are confirmed. A sister is tormented by visions of the man her brother murdered during the Troubles. A woman struggles to forgive herself after an abortion threatens to destroy her marriage. Plumbing the depths of intimacy, violence, and redemption, these stories are "dazzling, heartbreaking ... keen to share the lessons of a lifetime" (Guardian).
Gibraltar
1983
Audrey McGuigan is in front of the wire fence that marks the end of their garden, where newly planted lawn gives way to tufts of roseroot and marram grass. Behind her, Ben Bulben is under cloud, only the west side visible, curving into the sea. The tide is out, an acrid slime covering the seabed. A dog has left the carcass of a sewage-fattened mullet in the low dunes and the smell repulses her; she is seven months pregnant. Marty hasn't figured out how to use his new camera, and Audrey has been stock-still for five minutes. He's just noticed how huge she is, at least as big as when she was at full term with Rory, who is out of the picture, climbing over the Gibraltar Rocks to get away from his parents' bickering. After a clutch of car sales, Marty goes to auctions. He has bought a scrap of waste ground, a terraced house on Harmony Hill, a derelict shop near the docks. He also bought the field that borders Gibraltar. Half an hour ago, he put a sign on one of the gates that ...
The stories are often bleak in concept and narrative. While this can make them tough going if consumed as a whole, many offer subtle glimmers of hope, be it through deadpan humor, hard won resilience, or hints of possible change to come. A couple of entries stand out as highlights: "Garland Sunday" and "Brittle Things." In the former, we look at the repercussions of a couple's decision to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. In the latter, we follow the mother of a non-speaking autistic child, as she attempts to simultaneously shield and nurture him in a world he finds overwhelming. To do so, she must navigate the frustrations of daily life, grapple with misplaced guilt, overcome her husband's denial about their son's condition, and face the constant pity of her friends and neighbors. Throughout the book at large, there is a sense of the weight held by words that go unspoken...continued
Full Review
(597 words)
(Reviewed by Callum McLaughlin).
Anne Enright
I love Kennedy's vividly conjured reality. Her prose is so alive, I am surprised that the book stays shut when you close it. Emma Donoghue
Like fifteen novels squeezed between two covers, ready to blow your mind. The only other writer I can think of who packs this much moving, terrible life into each story is Alice Munro.
In 2018, in a culturally and historically significant move, the Irish public voted in favor of overturning the country's long-held ban on abortion, with more than 66% supporting the repeal. This victory for improving access to healthcare for millions was by no means an overnight success, however.
On the contrary, the fight to legalize abortion in Ireland was a long and arduous one. The procedure was first criminalized in 1861 with the Offences Against the Person Act, which forbid women from seeking to "procure a miscarriage." This law would see a sentence of life imprisonment handed to anyone who had or provided an abortion, or helped to provide access to one in any way.
In 1983, the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland...
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