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Where Have You Been?
A deeply moving collection of stories from the bestselling author of The Star of the Sea .
Where Have You Been? is award-winning novelist Joseph O'Connor's first collection of short stories in more than twenty years. Ranging from urgently contemporary London and Dublin to New York's Lower East Side in the nineteenth century, from dark comedy to poignancy, from the wryly provocative to the quietly beautiful, these stories offer a gathering of dreamers and lost souls who contend with the confusions of living. Here are men without women, children parenting parents, residents of the Broke-bank Mountain that is Ireland after the Celtic Tiger, emigrants, travellers, cheats and lovers, families, friends and foes. The focus is on those moments of the everyday when possibility seems to appear. A football match becomes an occasion of hard-won acceptances. An old acquaintance re-encountered plays mind-games in a bar. A fling between people who have almost nothing in common alters their lives forever. In Dublin, a desperately ill woman meets a tour guide in a hotel. A civil servant drives his father into Wicklow to say a final goodbye. A boy comes of age in a seaside town where everything is about to change.
Where Have You Been? is award-winning novelist Joseph O'Connor's first collection of short stories in more than twenty years. Ranging from urgently contemporary London and Dublin to New York's Lower East Side in the nineteenth century, from dark comedy to poignancy, from the wryly provocative to the quietly beautiful, these stories offer a gathering of dreamers and lost souls who contend with the confusions of living. Here are men without women, children parenting parents, residents of the Broke-bank Mountain that is Ireland after the Celtic Tiger, emigrants, travellers, cheats and lovers, families, friends and foes. The focus is on those moments of the everyday when possibility seems to appear. A football match becomes an occasion of hard-won acceptances. An old acquaintance re-encountered plays mind-games in a bar. A fling between people who have almost nothing in common alters their lives forever. In Dublin, a desperately ill woman meets a tour guide in a hotel. A civil servant drives his father into Wicklow to say a final goodbye. A boy comes of age in a seaside town where everything is about to change.
336 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2008
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About the author
Joseph O'Connor
105 books633 followersThere is more than one author with this name
Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin. He is the author of the novels Cowboys and Indians (short-listed for the Whitbread Prize), Desperadoes , The Salesman , Inishowen , Star of the Sea and Redemption Falls , as well as a number of bestselling works of non-fiction.
He was recently voted ‘Irish Writer of the Decade’ by the readers of Hot Press magazine. He broadcasts a popular weekly radio diary on RTE’s Drivetime With Mary Wilson and writes regularly for The Guardian Review and The Sunday Independent. In 2009 he was the Harman Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Baruch College, the City University of New York.
Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin. He is the author of the novels Cowboys and Indians (short-listed for the Whitbread Prize), Desperadoes , The Salesman , Inishowen , Star of the Sea and Redemption Falls , as well as a number of bestselling works of non-fiction.
He was recently voted ‘Irish Writer of the Decade’ by the readers of Hot Press magazine. He broadcasts a popular weekly radio diary on RTE’s Drivetime With Mary Wilson and writes regularly for The Guardian Review and The Sunday Independent. In 2009 he was the Harman Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Baruch College, the City University of New York.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 25, 2021
I love the rhythm of Joseph O'Connor's writing. There is something soothing about it, the rise and the fall of the sentences across the page (or, in my case, read to me on the audiobook). Orchard Street, Dawn stood out as a favourite for me in this collection of short stories and a novella. I was less keen on the novella as it felt like another story about a faded man, disappointed with his life and himself.
November 7, 2012
I had a love hate relationship with this book. It contains 7 short stories and also a novella made up of 8 short chapters. I like O'Connor best when he writes historical fiction and loved the short story 'Orchard Street: Dawn'. I also liked 'The Wexford Girl'. Each of these was fresh, unique, insightful and engaging. The central character in most of the other stories seems to me to be the same man just with a different name - a sad, emotionally derelict, passive man with a failed marriage, an 'absent' mother and various permutations of a 'significant' father floating in and out of the story. By the time I got to the novella,I had little patience or empathy left for its main character - same as above.... In many ways I would prefer if O'Connor had written a good long novel about that man, got him out of his system and then presented a collection of short stories whose range did better justice to his great skill and wit. Still kept me reading to the end though..
October 15, 2014
Thought I would read this as a direct contrast to Margaret Drabble already I love O'Connor's vernacular. More anon. This is a storyteller in the Irish tradition right enough. The stories set in Dublin, London and New York are full of romance and hardship, love and loss. O'Conner is a passionate lyrical author and there are descriptive passages of terrible beauty. The stories are also full of empathy , humour and connection. Whilst Drabble's were drab and self absorbed O'Connor's are flamboyant, joyous and universal. Highly recommended
January 21, 2017
These are often quite sad stories mainly about men, their emotions, relationships and loneliness. The descriptions of the Irish psyche are excellent and the conversations leap off the page as if you are there yourself. Very good read.
January 8, 2020
quelques passages émouvants mais ça parle quand-même trop d'histoires de fesses à mon goût
February 25, 2020
Very very depressing.
January 29, 2023
I enjoyed all the stories and the writing but for some reason I didn’t rush to pick it up to read the next story. May have scored higher if read at a different time.
January 28, 2013
This is, by far, one of the most beautiful collection of short stories i have ever had the pleasure of reading. It's elegant & delicate with the stories pulling you in from the first page. The best is Orchard Street, Dawn which is poignantly bleak and desolately sad and is sure to bring a lump to your throat. A lovely read.
January 22, 2014
Eddie Virago doesn't deserve another outing but O'Connor's comic creation is before us again in the opening story of this collection. But this misstep aside, the rest of this collection is a poignant pleasure. There is something so sad at the heart of most of these pieces: bereavement and mis-communication interwoven.
Want to read
February 22, 2015Incipit
Non lo vedevo da vent’anni o più. E adesso eccolo qui, nell’opulenza delle sue carni, dietro la vetrina luccicante di un’agenzia immobiliare in Fownes Street, un’allucinazione in maniche di camicia e calzoni eleganti spiegazzati....
Dove sei stato incipitmania.com
Non lo vedevo da vent’anni o più. E adesso eccolo qui, nell’opulenza delle sue carni, dietro la vetrina luccicante di un’agenzia immobiliare in Fownes Street, un’allucinazione in maniche di camicia e calzoni eleganti spiegazzati....
Dove sei stato incipitmania.com
January 14, 2013
This is beautifully written, but I fear that some of the stories lack individual definition. Therefore the effect can be quite repetitive. There are some cracking moments in it, notably The Wexford Girl.
June 7, 2013
Prachtig prosa. Een verhaal van weemoed zoals alleen Ieren dat kunnen schrijven. Vooral het laatste hoofdstuk 'Requiem' is magnifiek.
November 12, 2013
Moments of brilliance amid unnecessary crudity. I won't be rushing back to O'Connor.
December 26, 2013
This is excellent . A really good read
July 7, 2014
It's been a long time since I've read a short story collection and really enjoyed this one. Very well written and engaging.
May 12, 2015
Intriguing sorry based out of the Tenament museum in the East Side of NYC. The Irish story.
September 6, 2015
I support independent bookstores. You can use this link to find one near you: http://www.indiebound.org
January 30, 2014
Klein boekje, nederlandse vertaling gelezen. Met titel "Alles goed?"
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews