Short StoriesIn a world that makes so many demands on our time, a world where we are constantly bombarded with information of all types, a world at times full of overwhelming bustle, it is the short story, perhaps, that is best suited to containing and expressing the realities of individual human existence.
For it is the short story that can pluck from the mad flux of contemporary life concentrated instances of powerful feeling and share them with a reader. At times "story" is a misused term, because the best short stories are those that, in their brevity, reveal a character, emotion or place for one intense moment.
David Marcus has for the seventh consecutive year gathered together some of the pre-eminent exponents of the art of the short story who are writing in Ireland today. More than any single figure in contemporary Irish writing, Marcus has been - for over 50 years - a constant source of encouragement to many emerging writers, not only in this venture with the Phoenix publishing house, but in his years as Literary Editor of the Irish Press. It is a tribute to his continuing and energetic interest in Irish fiction that, in his introduction to this collection, he urges those who have not yet had the courage to put pen to paper to do so, in order that new voices and new perspectives can be heard.
This present compilation is a demonstration of that idea in practice. It is certainly diverse, putting new and established writers side by side. Opening with a previously unpublished piece by Frank O'Connor - an atypical, possibly experimental, story set in the mills of Northern England - and moving through some of the better known contemporary writers like Blánaid McKinney, Claire Keegan and Julia O'Faolain, to writers such as Niall McCardle, whose playfully self-conscious story Heavy Weather is his first piece of fiction to be published, this collection continually challenges and surprises the reader.
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne's contribution, The Moon Shines Clear, The Horseman's Here, confirms her standing as a writer concerned with mapping that liminal space between languages and cultures - Irish and European - and in the process highlighting the possibility that stories possess in connecting people with each one another.
Glass, by relative newcomer Gerard Donovan, is a story that in its economy, in its gentle emphasis on not only what is said but on what is not said, evokes beautifully a young boy's changing relationship with his widowed mother.
Lorcan Byrne in Delivery deftly interweaves two lonely voices that can never connect with the other. In Indian Summer, Cóilín Ó hAodha manages to be true to three time frames in a story that marks the transience of youthful endeavour and friendship.
These are writers confident in their skills and for that the reader should be happy. This is a collection - like its predecessors - to be dipped into and enjoyed. It is a glimpse of what is happening in contemporary Irish fiction and a glimpse, too, of what is to come, for there are names here to watch for in the future.
Derek Hand is a lecturer in English in St Patrick's College, Drumcondra. His book, John Banville: Exploring Fictions, was published by the Liffey Press last year
Phoenix Irish Short Stories 2003 Edited by David Marcus Phoenix, 213pp. £6.99