Kings on the Roof
This is something that happens every seven years or so, and it’s happening again. I’ve scratched the seven year itch and my latest collection of short stories, Kings on the Roof, is about to go live. Published by Forty Foot Press, it has eleven stories drawn from all across my universe.
Stories from Dublin in different manifestations in space and time. Stories from Wicklow and rural Ireland too. Bray seafront, Lough Crew’s megalithic tombs, and the Vale of Avoca all feature. Farther afield, there’s a time travel Western set in Cloud City, based on real and imagined towns in Colorado, notably Leadville. In the opening story, The Figurine, I return to Ciudad Sine Nomine, last visited in 2006 in The Apartment Opposite. Still it seesaws between the ancient Mediterranean and the cacophony of Latin America, a prism distorting our ideas of religion, love, obsession and life everlasting.
The title story, Kings on the Roof, is set around Dublin’s Amiens Street, with the Sorting Office in Sheriff Street, and Cleary’s Pub beneath the railway bridge featuring. There’s an autobiographical element to this story, as I worked in the Sorting Office with the P7T in the late seventies.
back then when everything seemed possible, even there in the Sorting Office, in the bowels of that clanking beast, amongst the trolls and elves of the workaday world. We’d climb onto the high gantry and up the fixed ladder to the roof, Alex, the Bishop and I. We were kings of the world up there, with Dublin spread out beneath us, above us only a rippling sky.
A more mythic Dublin features in The Secret Lover of Captain Raymondo D’Inzeo. Set in the late sixties in the Liberties, the narrative includes fanciful versions of Marconi, the Easter Rising, the Theatre Royal and the magnificent Italian showjumping team winning the Aga Khan.
Just past Cassoni’s I see the car, a red Alfa Romeo with the roof rolled down. Graciano is at the wheel, la Contessa Rossi languishing in the passenger seat.
“You,” she says, “you have set your sight on the Captain. You are good. A young girl with well turned calf. But would he set his cap for you, the Captain? In all probability. He can acquire what he likes.”
I can’t think what to say. “Will Italy win the Aga Khan?” I stammer.
La Contessa puts her head to one side, like a bird looking at a worm. When she speaks, it is not by way of a reply. “I see your man there. He is within your reach. Don’t take me wrong for, believe me, we both have love in our hearts. And yes, we will win.”
The cover illustration is realistic enough, based on a photographic time exposure of city traffic at College Green, Dublin’s dizzy fulcrum. This is the beating heart of Dublin. Whenever you stand there, you will experience the rattle and hum of the city. The song it makes is of all the songs that have been sung here, all the words written and spoken, the history of centuries and recent seconds. At night I find it something special, intimate in its inkiness, dangerous and comforting in that non stop firefly display. Stand and watch the lights of passing traffic going everywhere, fast, at the same time.
Kings on the Roof is published by Forty Foot Press, and is available on Amazon.
Stories from Dublin in different manifestations in space and time. Stories from Wicklow and rural Ireland too. Bray seafront, Lough Crew’s megalithic tombs, and the Vale of Avoca all feature. Farther afield, there’s a time travel Western set in Cloud City, based on real and imagined towns in Colorado, notably Leadville. In the opening story, The Figurine, I return to Ciudad Sine Nomine, last visited in 2006 in The Apartment Opposite. Still it seesaws between the ancient Mediterranean and the cacophony of Latin America, a prism distorting our ideas of religion, love, obsession and life everlasting.
The title story, Kings on the Roof, is set around Dublin’s Amiens Street, with the Sorting Office in Sheriff Street, and Cleary’s Pub beneath the railway bridge featuring. There’s an autobiographical element to this story, as I worked in the Sorting Office with the P7T in the late seventies.
back then when everything seemed possible, even there in the Sorting Office, in the bowels of that clanking beast, amongst the trolls and elves of the workaday world. We’d climb onto the high gantry and up the fixed ladder to the roof, Alex, the Bishop and I. We were kings of the world up there, with Dublin spread out beneath us, above us only a rippling sky.
A more mythic Dublin features in The Secret Lover of Captain Raymondo D’Inzeo. Set in the late sixties in the Liberties, the narrative includes fanciful versions of Marconi, the Easter Rising, the Theatre Royal and the magnificent Italian showjumping team winning the Aga Khan.
Just past Cassoni’s I see the car, a red Alfa Romeo with the roof rolled down. Graciano is at the wheel, la Contessa Rossi languishing in the passenger seat.
“You,” she says, “you have set your sight on the Captain. You are good. A young girl with well turned calf. But would he set his cap for you, the Captain? In all probability. He can acquire what he likes.”
I can’t think what to say. “Will Italy win the Aga Khan?” I stammer.
La Contessa puts her head to one side, like a bird looking at a worm. When she speaks, it is not by way of a reply. “I see your man there. He is within your reach. Don’t take me wrong for, believe me, we both have love in our hearts. And yes, we will win.”
The cover illustration is realistic enough, based on a photographic time exposure of city traffic at College Green, Dublin’s dizzy fulcrum. This is the beating heart of Dublin. Whenever you stand there, you will experience the rattle and hum of the city. The song it makes is of all the songs that have been sung here, all the words written and spoken, the history of centuries and recent seconds. At night I find it something special, intimate in its inkiness, dangerous and comforting in that non stop firefly display. Stand and watch the lights of passing traffic going everywhere, fast, at the same time.
Kings on the Roof is published by Forty Foot Press, and is available on Amazon.
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