From the author of City of Bohane and Dark Lies the Island, a debut collection that “could easily have been titled ‘These Are Little Masterpieces’” (The Irish Times) This award-winning story collection by Kevin Barry summons all the laughter, darkness, and intensity of contemporary Irish life. A pair of fast girls court trouble as they cool their heels on a slow night in a small town. Lonesome … slow night in a small town. Lonesome hillwalkers take to the high reaches in pursuit of a saving embrace. A bewildered man steps off a country bus in search of his identity–and a stiff drink. These stories, filled with a grand sense of life’s absurdity, form a remarkably surefooted collection that reads like a modern-day Dubliners. Winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, and a 2007 book of the year in the Irish Times, the Sunday Tribune, and Metro, There Are Little Kingdoms marks the stunning entrance of a writer who burst onto the literary scene fully formed.
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These stories are little artworks. You need to read them slowly, closely, as the author has chosen his words very precisely. It is not the action that drives the narrative, but the descriptions.
’Atlantic City’ is a kind of example of what life in a small countryside village is like for its youth, and also how it will develop, generation after generation without fundamental change. Well told, with some flashes of genius, for example when the girls enter the boys’ arcade: „They had vinegar in them and they roved their dangerous eyes around the habituees and they were a carnival of cheap perfume on young skin …”. But James, the leader of the pack, has the better of them: „His hungry gaze asked severe questions of their confidence…” until later on „Though the girls had become shyer, shyness can fold in on itself and be transformed on a summer night: when there is possibility in the air, shyness can say what the hell and trade itself for a brazenness.”
’To the hills’ is a story of inevitable loneliness at middle age, when this has even seemed to become preferable to a relation. It is the fate of certain peoples’ lives. Unforgettable are the lines „… the slow hours of the afternoon yawned and presented themselves with a certain belligerence. Those who go mad go mad first in the afternoons.” And how about the humor in naming the guesthouse the St Ignatius of Loyola B&B?
’See The Tree’ is a bit weird, as it remains unsaid what happened to the main character before he lost all memories. There are some hints, that’s all. Meaning of the title? Amusing story nonetheless.
’Animal Needs’ is the opposite, elaborate and explicit, with the exception of the daughter maybe who only makes an appearance in the last paragraph. Magnificent description of the desolation of (Trump?) country life, where even gods get depressed: „There are crisis levels of debt. There is alcoholism and garrulousness and depressive ideation. There is the great disease of familiarity. These are long, bruised days on the midland plain. People wake in the night and shout out names they have never known. … There is addiction to prescription medications and catalogue shopping. Boys with pesticide eyes pull handbrake turns at four in the morning and scream the names of dark angels. Everybody is fucking everybody else.”
’Last Days of the Buffalo’ is a short sketch of another soul lost in life. „… it happens sometimes is that pain becomes a feed for courage, a nutrient for it: when pain drips steadily, it can embolden.” The main character has a trait in common with some of the ones of the other stories: he needs routine to stay (mentally) sane. „He has before him the consolations of routine.”
’Ideal Homes’ is a funny story about two rebellious female adolescents in yet another deadly boring village. The blind shopkeeper who needs the client to tell him what they chose to buy „…is as close the village got to an attraction.” The girls steal from the shopkeeper of course and roam around the village to annoy as many people as they can.
’The Wintersongs’ observes the (non)reaction of a young girl to a chatty half mad lady seated opposite of her in the train. As in an earlier story (the daughter in Animal Needs) the main character is the one that does not say a word. The author concludes (with regret?) that „She doesn’t know that every step from now on will change her. She is so open, so fluid. Every conversation will change her, every chance meeting, every walk down the street.”
’Party at Helen’s’ is a kind of relay in which the story is taken over by a new character (all youngsters) if he or she meets the current narrator at the party where the story is located. This presents Barry to display one of his major skills: very concise character description. „She was born to middle age, and a lascivous one: all solace was in the senses.” „She was intuitive: she had an idea of the vast adult dullness that loomed around the next turn.
’Breakfast Wine’ is my favourite. It is only a description of a bar scene but done with exquisite detail. Every word in this story is right on the dot. „The clock considered twelve and passed it by with a soft shudder, as though it had been a close call.” „… the dread of the morning had lifted, we passed the hour of remorse, and we marched to the mellow afternoon.” „… the days were slow in The Northern Star, and the nights were only trotting after them.” „We nodded, the three men, sombre as owls. We nodded as though the cruel variables of love were hardly news to us. … Oh what we wouldn’t have given for broken hearts.” This story is a real gem of the genre.
’Burn the bad lamp’ is again about a desillusioned midle aged man with psychological problems. He is constant on the alert for dangerous mood swings which he tries to check with tried homemade simple methods. „He knows that ’perceived slights’ is one of the key danger signs…” Surprisingly enough, the story develops in a kind of fairytale, unlike all the other stories.
The title story starts off with a magnificent first paragraph: just read it! The narrator has a range of surreal experiences and it is left to the reader to judge what causes them. Psychological conditions, drugs, drinking?
’Nights at the Gin Palace’ is a rather hilarious story about an old resigned father and a manic, hysterical daughter who has failed in everything she has tried in life. Now she wants to start a hotel. „She had some handsomeness still but it was turning into something else. She had moved from city to city, and from town to town, propelled by a talent for hopeless optimism.”
’The Penguins’ is hilarious as well, relating the survival of airplane passengers that landed in uninhabited territory. „My husband is like on of those second-hand books you buy that’s got all the wrong bits underlined.” The funny thing is that a few of the passengers are characters from the earlier stories.