"The Shadow Owner's Companion" by Eleanor Hooker

" Shadow Owner's Companion" by Eleanor Hooker (2012, 14 pages)

Irish Short Story Week Year Two

March 11 to July 1

Eleanor Hooker

Resources and Ideas for Irish Short Story Week

My Prior Posts for ISSW Year Two

Posts on Emerging Irish Women Writers

Posts by Participants

Please consider joining us for Irish Short Story Week, now set to end July 1.  Eleanor Hooker  is the six  Emerging Irish Writer that has now been featured.  I can only partially predict the future of the book blog world but I bet if somebody does an Irish Short Story Week in 2032 some of these writers will for sure be on the list.  (An explanation for my focus on women writers is here.)  I had at first planned just to make this a one week event but now it will be a recurring motif of Irish Short Story Week Year Two.   

Reading "The Shadow Owner's Companion" by Eleanor Hooker was such a rewarding experience that I have now read it five times.   The story really has everything! It is hilarious, wise, has great insight into family dynamics, it has ghosts and violence and characters you will love.  I think it could be the basis for a very good TV series and I would buy any novel written by the author.    It is set in rural Ireland in a run down house where young Lizzie, her parents, and for a while,  her grandfather live.   I was totally hooked by the opening paragraph of this perfect story.  

The year I turned eight, Dad began digging holes. Deep holes. In the ground.

The holes didn’t do anything, didn’t serve any purpose; he just dug them and then

filled them in. Digging holes was Dad’s new hobby. My new hobby was to watch

visitors and family shouting into the ground, and dodging shovel loads of earth

that erupted from the hole.

Of course Lizzie's mother thinks her husband is wasting his time with these crazy holes.  One day the father tells everyone he as an important announcement to make to the family, from now on he wants his holes referred to as burrows.   Each of the five times I have read this I laughed out loud even though I knew it was coming.  Today as I was taking my morning swim, I was thinking about the father in the story and I wondered if my wife thinks of The Reading Life as my burrow.  I hope not but I admit I wonder!

I feel compelled to quote a bit from the wonderful prose of the story, narrated in the first person by Lizzie

Whilst he and Granddad talked farm stuff, I tried to make out faces in the shadows

that filled the room. When Mother came into the kitchen, the room darkened and

quietened. Her blue eyes were cloudy, her movements angry. As usual Dad was

the last to come to the table. For a while the only noise was of knives and forks on

plates and the Grandfather clock tick-tocking. Then Dad made his big

announcement.

'I don't want ye to be talking about my holes anymore,' he said. 'I don't like

it when ye tell everyone I'm up my hole or down my hole or whatever ye say for a

laugh. From now on I want my hole to be known as my burrow'

‘You’re a bloody nut,’ Mother yelled, standing up and knocking over her

chair.

How can you not love a young girl who starts a sentence with "Whilst"?   It is this kind of diction that makes Lizzie and her family so real and gives "The Shadow Owner's Companion" such a perfectly crafted feel.   

The mother in the story used to be a beauty and had no expectations of one day living in a "tumble down farm house on the Dingle peninsula" with a husband who is has a pretty curious avocation.  and she is coming unhinged.    As the father digs deeper into his escape burrows, the mother gets madder and madder.   This is a darkly humorous story with a very deep vein of wisdom.  Lizzie and her father's burrows will be part of my interior world from now on.   

From the official biography of Eleanor Hooker

ELEANOR HOOKER lives in North Tipperary. She has a BA (Hons. 1st) from the Open University, an MA (Hons.) in Cultural History from the University of Northumbria, and an MPhil in Creative Writing (Distinction) from Trinity College, Dublin. She was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series in 2011. Her poetry has been published in journals in Ireland and the UK. She is a founding member, Vice-Chairperson and PRO for the Dromineer Literary Festival. She is a helm and Press Officer for the Lough Derg RNLI Lifeboat. She began her career as a nurse and midwife.

She has published a highly regarded collection of poetry under the same title as this gem of a story.

Nuala ni Chonchuir has done a very interesting interview with Eleanor Hooker, in which I was thrilled by beautiful poem "Glow Stone" which is quoted in full.  You can read the interview with Ms Hooker here.   (If you like you can also read my interview with Nuala here.)

"The Shadow Owner's Companion"  (under international copyright) is being published for the first time anywhere on The Reading Life.  I am very cognizant of the honor Eleanor Hooker has bestowed on my blog.


(The story is now out for print publication so for the time being access to it will be restricted, sorry for the inconvenience.  Note added May 14, 2012)

Mel u