"The Shawl" by Brian Kirk

"The Shawl" by Brian Kirk (2013)

Year Three

March 1 to March 31

Brian Kirk

Event Resources

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Brian Kirk's story "The Shawl" represents to me one of the most basic  reasons I have continued Irish Short Story Month for three years and hope to continue it many more.   It is a great feeling to me to read a story by a new to me writer who seems just at the start of his writing career and hope I will be able to watch her or him develop into a major writer.  I have learned enough about the life and business world of Irish writers to know that it takes more than just talent.  You have to find people willing to read your work and at some point pay you for it.   This is far from easy, I know.   Most online journals restrict themselves to publication of fairly brief short stories, that is one of the reasons the journal, Long Story, Short - A Literary Journal is so valuable.  They give their authors the amount of space they need to tell their stories.  

Brian Kirk's story, I will just describe it briefly as I do not want to spoil the experience of reading it for the first time for you, is about a subject few of like to think about.  Among other things, it is about what can happen to a romance when the money runs out.   Robert and Helen have been living together for some time.  Robert is a stock broker, the time of extreme prosperity in Ireland, called the Celtic Tiger, is winding down.   There are murmurs of staff reductions at his office.  He and Helen push these thoughts out of their minds.  

One night they find an almost magic shawl.

"They found the shawl on the back of a chair in a bar, forgotten or discarded by its owner. It was beautiful, golden, with many coloured threads woven into it. Robert saw it first, and showed it to Helen. He imagined an elegant older woman with pale complexion and red lips wearing it, loosely thrown around her shoulders against the chill of a late summer evening. They were about to leave and, rather than hand it in to the barman as she would normally have done, Robert watched as Helen simply folded it neatly and placed it in her bag."

 Soon the shawl takes on, or almost takes over their sex lives.   

" When he was naked he started to undress her slowly, removing each garment methodically, not kissing or even touching her flesh yet. When she was completely naked he reached down to the floor and took up the shawl from where it lay. He coiled it like a rope and bound her two hands loosely to the wrought iron headboard.

          Helen’s eyes opened in surprise as he did this, but she did not attempt to stop him. He felt a rush of excitement, a throb like a dull ache at the back of his skull, and he noticed how she smiled as she lay back on the covers, apparently surrendering herself to the exquisite otherness of restraint. Robert wasn't sure why he had done it. There was something about the shawl, and the way Helen was attracted to it, that told him it was okay. "

Soon they do not go to bed together without using the shawl in a bondage routine.   Both feel much more sexually aroused than without it.

In addition to Robert and Helen we meet some of his work friends.   One of the men is getting married soon and he cannot wait as he says he has found the perfect woman.  Of course his mates give him a hard time about it.   Of course the good times do not last forever and relationships have their ebbs and flows.   I hesitate to tell to much of the story so I won't give away more of the plot.  The denouement of the story is in fact very complicated, not simple as will, I think, be the reaction of most people.   

I urge you to read this story.   "The Shawl" by Brian Kirk has a great deal to tell us about how money permeates our relationships and can be too important in determining self esteem if we have no  anchor in life. It is a story to which  anyone who was once riding high on what they thought was an endless wave of prosperity can directly relate.   Women may wonder what they would do if the same thing happened in their relationship and men will wonder what their partner might do. 

 Some time ago I read in a Japanese novel (I cannot recall the name of it) that when a man loses his money, often his relationship with the woman in his life takes a down turn or ends.   The man will quickly think, "OK I am broke so she left me".   In fact it is often the man does not have the strength or the inner resources to live with out his money propping up his ego and he behaves in a way calculated to drive the woman away so he can then tell himself that this shows she never loved him.  Of course then the woman who leaves will also wonder about her own values.   

You can read this wonderful story here.

Author Bio

Brian Kirk was shortlisted for Hennessy Awards for fiction in 2008 and 2011. He won the inaugural Writing Spirit Award in 2009 with his story Perpetuity. In 2010 and 2011 he was a featured reader at The Lonely Voice platform for new short story writers at the Irish Writers’ Centre. He is currently seeking a publisher for his first novel and is completing work on debut poetry and short story collections. He was chosen to be part of the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series 2013. His poems and stories have appeared in Sharp Stick, Driven Nails published by The Stinging Fly Press, the Sunday Tribune, Crannóg, The Stony Thursday Book, Revival, Abridged, Southword, Boyne Berries, Wordlegs, Burning Bush 2, WortMosaik, Can Can, Shot Glass Journal, Bare Hands Poetry, The First Cut and various anthologies.

You can learn more about his work on his webpage.  It is a very good example of an author webpage.

You can also find links to more short stories and some of his award winning poetry.

I really like his short story "New Amsterdam" and I hope to post on it soon.  I think I will probably read all of his short fiction I can find via the links on his blog and look forward to one day posting on a collection of short stories or a novel by Brian Kirk.

I love this poem by Kirk.  It expresses the great sadness of losing a dear friend.  (I post it with his permission.  It is protected under international copyright laws and cannot be published or posted online without his permission.)   I think it will deeply effect those who can relate to it.  

I never thought that I would find him

Cold and dead, stretched out in a stranger’s yard,

As if sleeping – but not sleeping – numb, hard

As the frozen ground, draped in a fine skim

Of winter’s leavings.  Only an old cat,

An insignificant death you might say –

Aristotle certainly saw it that way –

When compared to a human life lost; that

Is what vexes some people, that feline

Or canine can be treated like human,

Cried over like lovers, valued like someone

You lived with and loved throughout their decline.

The divine in me with apt insouciance

Digs a shallow grave and buries nuisance.  "Suburban Sonnet" by Brian Kirk

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