The Ways

by Colin Barrett

The landline was mewling again in the kitchen, obliging Pell Munnelly, woke now for good, to climb from the cozy rut of her bed and pad downstairs in bare feet. She skimmed her fingertips along the dulled gray-and-lilac grain of the walls, swatted each light switch she passed to feel less alone.

Genres: Short Stories, Literary Fiction

20 pages, ebook

First published December 29, 2014

About the author

Colin Barrett was born in 1982 and grew up in County Mayo. In 2009 he completed his MA in Creative Writing at University College Dublin and was awarded the Penguin Ireland Prize. His work has been published in The Stinging Fly magazine and in the anthologies, Sharp Sticks, Driven Nails (Stinging Fly Press, 2010) and Town and Country (Faber and Faber, 2013).

Reviews

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cold. Dark. Gritty.

I'm not sure how the title The Ways fits but this was good. I was not sure at first how I would like this because of the curious way it started but I did. It starts kind of mid life experience for this family but the author does everything to get you up to speed. Three kids, two teens and a younger one try to survive in a rural Irish town after both of their parents have died of cancer. They are living a crude, hard life with the oldest son, Nick, working at a hotel in town trying his best to be a parent to them all. Pell is a 16 year old confused high school drop out who drinks a bit of vodka in the evenings, it's assumed to calm her pain of loss for her parents. Jerry, the youngest seems to get in a lot fights at school and is obsessed with a wild west video game. This is a very cold, dark rugged type of story. The author does a great job of bringing all these feelings to the story. It feels a bit sad. It feels desolate. You feel the struggle and sadness of these young people trying to cope with the bad hand the game of life has dealt them.

Good writing. I did listen to this in audiobook form. The author wasn't the greatest at reading out his own material but I won't judge that because the work has definitely shone through. The only think I didn't really like was what I thought was way too much detail devoted to the detail of this game Jerry liked to play. I thought a general description would have sufficed and which could left a little more room for a better ending. However, there really isn't a certain ending for these types of stories where it's just a days glance into a family's life. They all sort of fade into the distance because it's only a "day in the life", so to speak.

I give this 4 stars. I do recommend it. I will look for other works by this author.

[Sara]

Why i read short sad struggl story those days i dont know.but it about family in face of fate alone.children go far in life mix with game .painfull to read it.but its happend.