"Ebb and Flow" by Ger Burke (2013)

March 1 to April 14

Ger Burke

You are invited to participate in Irish Short Story Month III.  If you are interested e-mail me.

"Ebb and Flow" by Ger Burke is a wonderful story about the ebb and flow of a new relationship between an American professor of cinema at Columbia University and an Irish woman he met online. He is on a year's sabbatical and is in Galway.  She says she will take him on a tour of Salthill, a tourist area with lots of shops and restaurants located on Galway Bay.  Galway bay is famous for its high tides so this echoes the relationship changes.

Once I knew the man taught cinema at Columbia I began to realize he sees his relationship with the woman, he is thirty eight, she twenty eight, as if it were a scene in a movie to be continually evaluated and then analysed again in the light of the next scene that unfolds.  At first he begins to lose interest in the woman, she seems too intellectually shallow to interest him.  (I do not know if we are supposed to have this brought to mind as I read this but I imagined a class in cinema at Columbia as a humanities option course for people who did not want to have to read something and I saw a professor who would specialize in this as somehow stuck perpetually at the emotional level of  bright college students who can talk about movies at great length.  His mother was a Shakespeare authority so maybe this is harsh but it is what came to my mind as I read.)  Then he sees she has a copy of a work by Sartre in her purse and he begins to have another ebb in his relationship.  I wondered why the author choose Sartre but I won't speculate on it other than to say he does seem the philosopher of choice of the alienated intellectual post adolescent.  

He is so self-absorbed he does not realize her interest in him is ebb and flowing also.  Sometimes something has to happen in a relationship to break it out of the cycle of mutual over analyzing and when this does it can lead to a real connection. I think this does happen at the end of "Ebb and Flow".  

Burke does a very good job of bringing us into the minds of the man and woman.  She made me feel I was in Galway watching the tides of Galway Bay ebb and flow.  I really enjoyed this story and look forward to reading more of Ger  Burke's  work.  This is a very well written story that brings both characters to life while still leaving us wondering about a lot of things

Author Bio

GER BURKE is a novelist and short story writer. She has had many
literary successes both in print and radio, including being short-listed
for the Francis McManus Short Story Award and long-listed for The Fish
Short Histories Prize and the 2012 Fish Flash Fiction Competition. She
is a co-editor of Crannóg literary magazine. Her novel My Father’s Lands
was published in 2010 by Wordsonthestreet. Braided Loves, her new
novel, is due out in 2013.

Ger Burke has kindly agreed to do a Q and A Session for ISSM3 so please look for that soon.

Mel u

"Encounter On Buttermilk Lane" by James Mullarkey

"Encounter On Buttermilk Lane" by James Mullarkey  (2012, 7 pages)

March 1 to April 7

Jim Mullarkey

Galway

ISSM3 will be open until at least April 7.  Your participation is welcome.   E Mail me if you are interested or have any questions.

Jim Mullarkey is a writer I have wanted to read for some time.   I was very glad to see Lisa Frank has included one of his stories, "Encounter On Buttermilk Lane" in her great collection of short stories set in Galway, Ireland, Galway Stories.   In addition to being a wonderful collection of stories, it also helps give us a feel for one of the very greatest literary cities of the world.  I am starting to be convinced that per capita Galway has the highest number of writers and artists of any city in the world. 

As the story opens a man is on his way to the library to borrow a book on herbs.  He knows the book well, as he does herbs, and wants to read it almost more for the beauty of the images than the familiar words.  Galway must be a very walker friendly city as the streets teem with people of all sorts, many of whom seem to know each other.  There is a human element too encounters even with beggars in the street, one that would not be found in lots of the places I have been.  In my Q and A sessions I have asked many of the authors what they miss about Ireland when they are out of the country.  Several said it was the ability to strike up a conversation with a stranger without seeming mental to the other person.

The man runs into a friend he has not seen in years, a school mate.   He wonders if the man had made anything of himself in the time since he had seen him.  The man is very reflective, very introspective and self-aware.  He and the man decide to have coffee in one of the many Galway coffee houses.  The other man gives money to a beggar, the narrator has learned to ignore them.  He wonders what is in the psyche of his friend that makes him feel obligated to give.  Mullarkey has worked as a psychotherapist  and he has made good use of that experience in this story.   There is a very subtle multidimensional analysis of a dream in one of the conversations between the two men that is really interesting.  You can see the narrator does feel self-conscious over his own lack of prosperity, he wonders if it shows and he knows he has had years of experience of letting other people insist on paying the bill in cafes.   

"Encounter on Buttermilk Lane" is a very good story and I know I will soon venture to read his recent collection of short stories, published by Doire Press, And.  The things I liked best about this story, besides the beautiful prose and the acute human insights were the conversations between the two men, getting the feel of each other after years, and just the sense the story gave me of the streets of Galway.

Author Data

JIM MULLARKEY is a fiction writer, psychotherapist and teacher.

He was a Labour member of Galway City Council from 1993 to 1999.

His story ‘Heaven’ was runner-up in the 2002 RTE Francis McManus

Award. ‘Mary up in Donegal’ was short-listed in the same competition

in 2005. ‘First Love’ was long-listed for the Raymond Carver Short

Story Award in 2004.

,

In recent years Jim has facilitated creative writing

workshops for adults with learning difficulties. He lives with his family

in Galway. And, his debut collection of short stories, And, was published by

Doire Press in 2011.

Jim Mullarkey has kindly agreed to do a Q and A Session for ISSM3 so look for that soon

Mel u

"Deep Blue" by Mike McCormack

"Deep Blue" by Mike McCormack (2013, 5 pages)

Irish Short Story Month Year III

March 1 to April 7

Michael McCormack

Galway

Irish Short Story Month Year Three is extended to April 7.  If you would like to participate please e mail me.  

Galway Stories (forthcoming 2013-edited and introduced by Lisa Franks-Doire Press) was inspired by a collection of short stories on Paris that the editor bought in preparation for a trip to that city. Lisa Franks brilliantly decided to create a collection of stories set in Galway by mostly  Galway writers. She also provides a lot of insight into Galway in her introduction.    I have said it before (and no doubt will again) that for a city its size the literary productivity of Galway is both very voluminous and of very high quality.  (In my Q and A sessions with authors from Galway I have asked them to talk about this and you will find some very interesting answers in them). 

Lisa Franks, as she reveals in her introduction is an American who first came to Galway to take participate in a literary workshop.  She had a lifetime passion for Irish literature and Galway quickly came to feel like where she belonged.  (In her Q and A Session she kindly explains more about how she came to move to Galway and co-found and manage Doire Press with John Walsh.)  I have been kindly provided a pre-publication copy of this book and I can say with certainty it will be very highly received.  There are twenty stories in the collection, ten are by writers on whom I have previously posted and I hope to post on some of the other ten writers one at a time.

The first story I will talk about is "Deep Blue" by Mike McCormack, a marvelous very entertaining story about an online chess game.  The story opens with Declan's friend talking about a chess match Declan played online.  It was interesting to learn a bit about the world of big time online chess games.  It seems, which makes perfect sense, that there are web pages where one can log on and issues challenges.  Chess players of quality are ranked numerically by their world standing and sometimes wagers for standing points are issued.  Declan received a challenge from a player 200 or so ranks above him, the terms were generous so he accepted.  He went down to his local pub to play online, just as he thought he had won and was beginning to gloat over how much his standing would go up, the game went blank.  Declan is outraged thinking the other player pulled the plug.   I won't tell much more of the story other than to say I laughed out loud when I found out who the other player was and I think you will also.  You can almost feel the rage of Declan over how it at last turns out.

"Deep Blue" was a great read.  It was so interesting to see another example of how the internet is taking over more and more.  It is also very rooted in Galway, set in a pub. We also in a few lines learn of the life connections of Declan and his friend, one grew into a "real adult" and the other is still working on it.  I hope to read much more of his work soon.

MIKE MCCORMACK is the author of two collections of short stories Getting it in the Head and Forensic Songs, and two novels Crowe’s Requiem and Notes from a Coma. He was awarded the Rooney Prize for Literature in 1996 and Getting it in the Head was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. In 2006 Notes from a Coma was short-listed for the Irish Book of the Year Award; it has recently been published in America. He was awarded a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship in 2007.  He lives in Galway.  

Mike McCormack has agreed to do a Q and A Session for ISSM3 so look for that soon.

Doire Press is one of Ireland's most innovative publishing houses and their web page is a valuable source of information.  

Mel u