Re O Laighleis

The stories take place mostly in Ireland, and a few other places. Two boys, close friends, argue over the nomenclature of Northern Ireland, not knowing what they’re arguing about and using profanities handed down from adults. Then they make up. Wishful thinking. In the title story an overly bitter closeted publisher is given to cheating writers.

A man’s wife dies and he promptly ponders a pistol in a drawer. A woman who pledges two years of celibacy as a devotion to the Virgin Mary is show more terrorized by her husband for it. A retiring teacher ponders what she missed by not following her love to Canada years earlier. A boy gives his drunken bully of a father a taste of his own. A ridiculous doctor gets his comeuppance. Two women who had been lovers in college are reunited by the funeral of the husband of one - the riskiest story here.

The stories and their morals aren’t subtle and are often simplistic. The lessons are often telegraphed – or are just left sticking out there in plain sight. Sins are punished. Retribution administered. Morality fiction. show less

If anyone is producing stories in Irish that are cool enough to attract the reader who in English is a Clive Barker/Stephen King fan, it’s Ré Ó Laighléis, a Dubliner, ex-teacher, and winner of several awards for his gutsy Irish fiction and shivery touch. . . . There certainly hasn't been anything quite like this written in Irish within the last couple of millennia.
- RTÉ Guide

A cinematographic novel providing a frightening insight into prehistoric tribalism in Ireland . . . one of the show more most unusual and atmospheric pieces written in the latter part of this century. show less

This collection contains ten stories in which we find vanity, strength and humankind in any cover with the pollution of these characteristics as the aging goes.

A summer job for Damien in a Paris hospice brings him into contact with the elusive Justine, who, like some of those allegedly under their care, is given to disappearing occasionally: the unexpected is the norm here!