Questions, dark memories and untold truths surface in this collection by Dermot Bolger. The opening story, The Last Person, singles out a lone individual appearing in an unlikely environment, much to the shock of his old colleague. Bolger sets the tone here for a collection of perspectives on hidden grief, misunderstandings, secrets and betrayals.
The characters in each tale feel mystified and troubled and are in search of an answer or an outlet for their confessions. One Seed of Doubt explores widowhood and the interruption of mourning on suspicion of adultery. This and Supermarket Flowers offer moments of comedy within a collection that carries the heavy issues of oppression, abandonment and shame.
A mystery woman deposits flowers on the grave of a dead husband, prompting an investigation by his widow into the nature of their relationship. A grandmother and a young mom lock horns after a tragic traffic accident that resulted in the loss of a child. A public display of grief becomes a battleground for space, acknowledgment and peace.
Elsewhere, mourners in The Lover share their secrets of forbidden passion with the historical figure of Roger Casement. Told through the lens of a ceremony to relocate the bones of the dead martyr, an elderly man in the crowd watches the passing of his old lover, wondering if others of “his kind” are also present, “unable to step forward and proclaim, ‘I knew him, we shared love’”.
The writer nods to Joyce, Beckett and WB Yeats in the collection, where they feature as inspiration, example and sometimes as characters or as relatives of these famed faces of Irish literature. Joyce fan Ezra Pound also gets a mention and there is an air of old Dublin in the stories, with several mentions of 20th-century Irish culture, including the political shadows of the IRA, which drifts into stories such as The Unremembered.
The relationship of reader and writer, censorship of literary works and the almost patriotic act of remembering classic poetry form major elements of stories such as Martha’s Streets, What Then and The Rivals. The writer makes heroes of factory hands, who are respected for their no-nonsense attitude and love of Yeats. A dying father is converted to Joyce on his deathbed by rebel daughter Martha, who has fretfully read her bible Ulysses since before college, hidden in the dust jacket of Lives of the Saints.
Writers are highlighted as rule breakers, social pariahs and channels for those seeking “secret lives running like a current beneath the façade of their native city”.
The continuing theme of secrecy, those who serve willingly under it or those who become victims of it, is a foundation stone of the collection. The poignancy and secret shame of sexual abuse arise in Coffee at Eleven and The Keeper of Flanagan’s Hotel. Both stories shed light on childhoods forgotten and made foggy by those who stole innocence. A farm and an old hotel are the backdrop for memories that unravel, leaving their tellers fatigued and in need of returning to the simple lives they have managed to conjure from a difficult past.
There is a sensitivity in these stories that feels considered and conveys the nature of abuse as subtle, pervasive and silently destroying.
Fallen heroes and mourners keeping vigil remind the reader of the sacred Irish practice of remembrance, but as a tradition that is fractured, selective and entirely subjective. Even the most light-hearted characters experience a start in an internationally renowned soccer club as “a mincing machine for dreams”.
The shame of returning as a failure in Coming Home is no different from the return of successful novelist Simon in The Rivals. Both experience conflict, and the understanding of their journey as running away from a fate they cannot escape. What people want to remember is valiance, the one who fought the communal fight, the canvas on which those who remained at home can paint their dreams upon. The weight of this is carried in the opening and closing stories, where success and admiration are questioned. Who is the victor? Who is the authentic one? The fair winner?
Each of the protagonists wrestles with exorcising pain, moving through life as ghosts or in search of them, grieving to be seen grieving, appearing without invitation, and returning to their selected place in the tomb of the past.
Secrets Never Told is a taut collection of stories delivered with precision and poise.
