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Sleepwalkers
Darkly moving and beautifully written, Bernie McGill’s debut collection of short stories explores the lives of women across the generations. From the storm-battered coastline of the north of Ireland to the sleeping villas of Andalusia, McGill’s characters grapple with the consequences of affairs, bereavement, alcoholism, illness and murder.
Compassionate and quietly powerful, McGill’s stories capture intimate moments of loss, love, and healing in a troubled age.
‘If I could be any other kind of writer, I would want to be Bernie McGill’ Ian Sansom
‘A writer to watch out for’ Sunday Tribune
Compassionate and quietly powerful, McGill’s stories capture intimate moments of loss, love, and healing in a troubled age.
‘If I could be any other kind of writer, I would want to be Bernie McGill’ Ian Sansom
‘A writer to watch out for’ Sunday Tribune
- GenresShort Stories
97 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2013
5 people are currently reading
256 people want to read
About the author
Bernie Mcgill
11 books70 followersBernie McGill lives in Portstewart in Northern Ireland. She is the author of two novels: The Butterfly Cabinet and The Watch House, which was shortlisted in 2019 for the Irish/European Union Prize for Literature. Her work has been translated into Dutch (Charlotte’s vleugels) and into Italian (La donna che collezionava farfalle and Le parole nell’aria).
Her latest publication is This Train is For, a collection of short stories published by No Alibis Press, Belfast (June 2022). Sleepwalkers, Bernie's first collection of short stories, was published in May 2013 by Whittrick Press and shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2014. The title story was first prizewinner in the Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Contest (US) and the collection includes 'Home', a supplementary prizewinner in the 2010 Bridport Short Story Prize and 'No Angel', Second Prizewinner in the Seán Ó Faoláin and the Michael McLaverty Short Story Prizes. Her work has been anthologised in Belfast Stories, Reading the Future and in the award-winning The Long Gaze Back, The Glass Shore, and in Female Lines. She is the recipient of a number of Arts Council Awards as well as a Research Award from the Society of Authors. She is a former Writing Fellow with the Royal Literary Fund at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's University, Belfast.
Reviews
‘McGill writes about life, love and telegraphy with a poet’s clarity’ Sunday Times
‘Totally absorbing and full of unexpected twists’ Sunday Business Post
‘A lyrical, wonderfully atmospheric novel’ Sunday Express
‘McGill proves once again she is a masterful storyteller . . . historical fiction at its absolute best’ The Lady
‘The Watch House, set on Rathlin Island at the turn of the 20th century, [is] awash in old rituals and impending transformations, in loyalties and enmities and all manner of local witchery.’ Patricia Craig in the Irish Times Books of the Year.
‘Hard to put down, this atmospheric book will stay with you long after the final heart-rending denouement, setting McGill firmly into the panoply of modern Irish writers’ Irish Independent
'McGill has the ability to enter into the brain and heart of her characters.' (Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey writing in The Guardian
Her latest publication is This Train is For, a collection of short stories published by No Alibis Press, Belfast (June 2022). Sleepwalkers, Bernie's first collection of short stories, was published in May 2013 by Whittrick Press and shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2014. The title story was first prizewinner in the Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Contest (US) and the collection includes 'Home', a supplementary prizewinner in the 2010 Bridport Short Story Prize and 'No Angel', Second Prizewinner in the Seán Ó Faoláin and the Michael McLaverty Short Story Prizes. Her work has been anthologised in Belfast Stories, Reading the Future and in the award-winning The Long Gaze Back, The Glass Shore, and in Female Lines. She is the recipient of a number of Arts Council Awards as well as a Research Award from the Society of Authors. She is a former Writing Fellow with the Royal Literary Fund at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's University, Belfast.
Reviews
‘McGill writes about life, love and telegraphy with a poet’s clarity’ Sunday Times
‘Totally absorbing and full of unexpected twists’ Sunday Business Post
‘A lyrical, wonderfully atmospheric novel’ Sunday Express
‘McGill proves once again she is a masterful storyteller . . . historical fiction at its absolute best’ The Lady
‘The Watch House, set on Rathlin Island at the turn of the 20th century, [is] awash in old rituals and impending transformations, in loyalties and enmities and all manner of local witchery.’ Patricia Craig in the Irish Times Books of the Year.
‘Hard to put down, this atmospheric book will stay with you long after the final heart-rending denouement, setting McGill firmly into the panoply of modern Irish writers’ Irish Independent
'McGill has the ability to enter into the brain and heart of her characters.' (Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey writing in The Guardian
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 25, 2013
There is a major flaw in the slim volume of short stories entitled, Sleepwalkers; you turn the last page long before you're ready for the joy to end. It was such a disappointment that my only recourse was to begin again on page one.
Honestly, if this site used half-star ratings, I might have been tempted to give Sleepwalkers four-and-a-half stars instead of five, only because a few of the tales could not possibly measure up to the standard Bernie McGill established in the title tale, but she matched and maybe even raised the bar in a few of the others. For my money, the stories, "Home," "What I Was Left," "First Tooth," and—first prizewinner in a Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Contest—"Sleepwalkers," are the top-tier. First-rate. More than capable of withstanding hard scrutiny and comparison to any writer of the short story you want to name; IMHO, they will not fall short. The stories, "No Angel," and "Marked," are only marginally outshone . . . It's different for every reader, and for me the other stories in the collection were maybe slightly less successful at first-reading, but only in contrast to the shimmering examples listed above. Having said that, I'd be proud to call any of the stories in "Sleepwalkers" mine.
Happily, for Bernie McGill, they are indisputably hers; her gift is profound, and readers can anticipate future offerings with nothing less than excitement. Happily, too, the book has been well-received in the UK where it garnered a nomination for the Frank O'Connor Short Story Prize. It is little wonder that distinguished UK writers such as Julian Fellowes (creator of Downton Abbey), Rachel Hore, Ian Sansom, and Eugene McCabe are admirers of the works of Bernie McGill. We Yanks can learn a thing or two yet from the old country.
Fans of the short story might consider putting Sleepwalkers on a Christmas list, or moving it to the top of the must-read list. My only recommendation to the publishers is that it should arrive packaged with a warning: Reading it, you might feel let down, but only because it is a great pleasure that ends all too soon.
Honestly, if this site used half-star ratings, I might have been tempted to give Sleepwalkers four-and-a-half stars instead of five, only because a few of the tales could not possibly measure up to the standard Bernie McGill established in the title tale, but she matched and maybe even raised the bar in a few of the others. For my money, the stories, "Home," "What I Was Left," "First Tooth," and—first prizewinner in a Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Contest—"Sleepwalkers," are the top-tier. First-rate. More than capable of withstanding hard scrutiny and comparison to any writer of the short story you want to name; IMHO, they will not fall short. The stories, "No Angel," and "Marked," are only marginally outshone . . . It's different for every reader, and for me the other stories in the collection were maybe slightly less successful at first-reading, but only in contrast to the shimmering examples listed above. Having said that, I'd be proud to call any of the stories in "Sleepwalkers" mine.
Happily, for Bernie McGill, they are indisputably hers; her gift is profound, and readers can anticipate future offerings with nothing less than excitement. Happily, too, the book has been well-received in the UK where it garnered a nomination for the Frank O'Connor Short Story Prize. It is little wonder that distinguished UK writers such as Julian Fellowes (creator of Downton Abbey), Rachel Hore, Ian Sansom, and Eugene McCabe are admirers of the works of Bernie McGill. We Yanks can learn a thing or two yet from the old country.
Fans of the short story might consider putting Sleepwalkers on a Christmas list, or moving it to the top of the must-read list. My only recommendation to the publishers is that it should arrive packaged with a warning: Reading it, you might feel let down, but only because it is a great pleasure that ends all too soon.
August 6, 2013
I read 'Sleepwalkers' during my stay in Ireland this summer and it has been a wonderful travelling companion. Bernie Mcgill's style is both powerful and warm-hearted. Each story exploring these moments in life of love, loss or illness. Moments of transformation and (re)construction of the self and of our relation to the world and to the people that surround us. Highly recommanded.
May 21, 2013
Of course I liked it - I wrote it!
June 12, 2025
A 'PICKED ME' book from the library that turned out to be a lost book, the librarian was very pleased and upon finishing, so was I. Sleepwalkers is a collection of short stories, stories about women and the lives that they live. It's beautiful and poignant. I very much enjoyed the little peek into their thoughts, their loves and losses and their feelings around the reality of their lives. I've included an excerpt from one of the stories that I enjoyed reading so much that I read it three times, twice mouthing the words silently so I could feel them on my lips. 6.5/10
From the 'What was left'story
From the 'What was left'story
So i told her the way she used to tell me. An Irish February on the northern coast, the sun a soft bulb, a great day for shadows, the strand glassy, mirroring blue. Two skies: one stretching overhead, entirely whole; the other scartered, lying about the sand in fragments of captured water, the passage of gulls reflected from one still pool to the next; the dunes shadowed and heatless, white-tipped waves picked out in the gold sun, Mussenden Temple a black mole on the headland of Benevenagh
June 1, 2023
A dark little collection of short stories by Bernie McGill. Jan Carson name dropped Bernie at a recent event celebrating the works of Mary Beckett, a master of the short story! I picked up this signed copy shortly after.
I heard Bernie speak at an event recently where she said there is no room for error in short stories, every sentence matters. She practices what she preaches. Each story creates a very full world that takes you in, curious to find out more.
I heard Bernie speak at an event recently where she said there is no room for error in short stories, every sentence matters. She practices what she preaches. Each story creates a very full world that takes you in, curious to find out more.
November 16, 2014
I went NUTS over Butterfly Cabinet, and am admittedly not a fan of short stories but of course I had to read it - and if you liked Butterfly Cabinet, you should, too.
That said, you can for sure tell that this is earlier work.
No matter - can't wait to see what she writes next!
That said, you can for sure tell that this is earlier work.
No matter - can't wait to see what she writes next!
Want to read
August 13, 2013Uhm....this book looks great, looking forward to reading it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews