March 1 to March 31
Colm Toibin
County Wexford
Event Resources
Ways to Participate-do a post on your blog and let me know about it-I will keep a master list and I will publicize your post and blog.
If you are an Irish author and would like to be featured, please contact me. There are several options open.
If you would like to do a guest post on my blog on anything related to Irish short stories, contact me.
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I have posted on a number of works by Colm Toibin (1955). I have read three of his novels including Brooklyn, The Master, and The Testament of Mary. I have also read his short non-fiction work on Lady Gregory and his amazing short story based on her "Silence". Last year during ISSM2 I posted his great short story collection, Mothers and Sons. I have also read prefaces and introductions he has written for classic novels. Obviously I really like and admire his work and I wanted to at least post on one of his stories for this years Irish Short Story Month.
"Two Women" (the second story in the collection The Empty Family) centers on a very famous set designer for movies. She is Irish, though she has not lived there for decades and has few, it seems fond memories of it, and she is eighty years old. Like his master, Henry James, Toibin is very good at writing about older women. The woman is single, never married with no children. Over years of working in the movies she has become quite affluent. She is on her way back to Dublin to work on a film, largely set in a pub, and we can see that her bearing can only be described as imperious. Her manner is all business, she knows what she needs to do quality work and she is devoted to her craft. There is a lot in this story. I was fascinated by the sub-plot about the Guatemalan family that works for her and whom she has made her heir. Toibin was brilliant in his depiction of them and their relationship to the woman. We get to know her assistant, Gabi, a bit and I loved it when she stood up to Francis, the woman's name but I doubt if many call her that.
Francis is reminded in Dublin of the great love her life, Luke. He was a very well regarded Irish actor. They met on a film set. There relationship was very intimate and lasted over ten years but they never lived together and never were in Ireland together. Francis looks down on Dublin and the people there. She lives in California. There is another woman in the story, the woman Luke married and lived happily with for many years after Francis and he ended their relationship. He has been dead for a long time. The scene depicting the meeting of these two women was so subtle in its depth of characterization as to be almost stunning.
Mel u
Ways to Participate-do a post on your blog and let me know about it-I will keep a master list and I will publicize your post and blog.
If you are an Irish author and would like to be featured, please contact me. There are several options open.
If you would like to do a guest post on my blog on anything related to Irish short stories, contact me.
I have posted on a number of works by Colm Toibin (1955). I have read three of his novels including Brooklyn, The Master, and The Testament of Mary. I have also read his short non-fiction work on Lady Gregory and his amazing short story based on her "Silence". Last year during ISSM2 I posted his great short story collection, Mothers and Sons. I have also read prefaces and introductions he has written for classic novels. Obviously I really like and admire his work and I wanted to at least post on one of his stories for this years Irish Short Story Month.
"Two Women" (the second story in the collection The Empty Family) centers on a very famous set designer for movies. She is Irish, though she has not lived there for decades and has few, it seems fond memories of it, and she is eighty years old. Like his master, Henry James, Toibin is very good at writing about older women. The woman is single, never married with no children. Over years of working in the movies she has become quite affluent. She is on her way back to Dublin to work on a film, largely set in a pub, and we can see that her bearing can only be described as imperious. Her manner is all business, she knows what she needs to do quality work and she is devoted to her craft. There is a lot in this story. I was fascinated by the sub-plot about the Guatemalan family that works for her and whom she has made her heir. Toibin was brilliant in his depiction of them and their relationship to the woman. We get to know her assistant, Gabi, a bit and I loved it when she stood up to Francis, the woman's name but I doubt if many call her that.
Francis is reminded in Dublin of the great love her life, Luke. He was a very well regarded Irish actor. They met on a film set. There relationship was very intimate and lasted over ten years but they never lived together and never were in Ireland together. Francis looks down on Dublin and the people there. She lives in California. There is another woman in the story, the woman Luke married and lived happily with for many years after Francis and he ended their relationship. He has been dead for a long time. The scene depicting the meeting of these two women was so subtle in its depth of characterization as to be almost stunning.
Mel u
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