Collected Short Stories

by Michael McLaverty

A reprint of McLaverty's short story collection about Northern Ireland's lonely hill farms, rough island terrain and the tight backstreets of Belfast.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Irish Literature

293 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

McLaverty (1904-1992) was a teacher and writer.

Reviews

[U. Cronin · Rating 5 out of 5]

McLaverty is the master of short stories! Every single story here is a gem. His writing is exquisite, beautiful, lyrical and some of these stories come close to perfection for me. Rural and urban life in the north east of Ireland in the middle of the last century is captured with a high-resolution, honest, sympathetic gaze. He writes of childhood - its innocence, its joys and its heartbreaks. He writes of husband and wife who bicker and maintain long, rigid silences. Of poverty. Hardship. There's a lot of humour. And nature. Nature is the queen of McLaverty's writings, whether describing a wild duck-s landing on a lake or a horse sweating as it labours to plough a field.
Micheal McLaverty is one of the great Irish writers, no doubt about it.

[A. Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twenty-three stories, all with fully realized characters and situations: this is a very good book, a wonderfully satisfying book. I was happy to read in the introduction (by Seamus Heaney) that McLaverty loved the work of Gerard Manley Hopkins. So do I. That love, that common note, is found in the great care taken with the everyday, the common, appreciating the worthiness of those things and those people. "Pigeons," "Aunt Suzanne," "The Priest's Housekeeper" are favourites; many of the stories have a child protagonist, dealing with serious things (and not just serious to a child).

[Mary-Marcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderful. Lyrical and often poetic details-- great sense of people and place: Northern Island. Sad, about broke my heart over and over; tears and blowing my nose!

[Socraticist · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories are purely Irish, or what I imagine “Irish” to be. None takes place in Northern Ireland more than 100 miles from any other, so it’s a minute (Irish and Catholic) piece of the world Michael McLaverty is writing about. And yet, the themes are familiar to me here in the Midwest USA, and universal. Mostly sad because they are usually about hard-working people living on the edge of poverty, they also look past the sadness to find the depth of beauty in all life.

The storytelling is exquisite, on a par with William Trevor, whom I admire as the supreme master of the modern short story. I would highly recommend this collection to any reader, but especially to those who appreciate or prefer the short story genre.

The best stories are:

Aunt Suzanne
Uprooted
After Forty Years
The White Mare
Evening in Winter
The Mother
A Schoolmaster
Look at the Boats
The Schooner
The Circus Pony

[Noah Jameson · Rating 5 out of 5]

McLaverty is one of Ireland's most distinguished writers and so it is difficult to say of him anything which has not already been said, and indeed probably better expressed by more knowledgeable folks than I. If you are unfamiliar with his writing, however, this selection of his short stories (introduced by the late, great Seamus Heaney, no less)is a good place to start.

The stories portray finely drawn characters, each with his or her own life struggle, in settings which are vividly and nostalgically described. McLaverty's prose is simply and achingly beautiful. Each sentence is as expertly crafted as a painting.

'The Priest's Housekeeper' intrigues with the sudden arrival and equally brisk departure of a quirky stranger. 'The Wild Duck's Nest' delights with its haunting descriptions of nature and the wonderment of a young boy. My favourite, however, is 'A Half Crown' which reflects a tragic family rift based on a misunderstanding.

Definitely a book destined for a permanent place on the bedside cupboard.

[Denise Kruse · Rating 5 out of 5]

23 simply magnificent short stories! Pigeons, Aunt Suzanne, The Priest's Housekeeper, Steeplejacks...each story is a little gem. He says just enough and leaves ya’ pondering. Although a little older, Michael McLaverty lived a few miles from my mother in No. Ireland which makes some of the phrasing particularly appealing to me. He is so esteemed in Ireland that there is a competition in his name held annually. I too love this writer!