True believers

by Joseph O'Connor

True Believers projects the reader into a world of characters stunning in their variety. Here are sad-hearted priests, old friends, young lovers, rockers and rebels, husbands and runaway wives, punks and poets. They all are clinging desperately to some kind of faith in a mutable and dangerous world.

Genres: Short Stories, Ireland, Fiction, Irish Literature

239 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

There 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.

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

(I have just slightly edited, for readability, this review. Since writing it I have read and been massively disappointed in Joseph O'Connor's first novel 'Cowboys and Indians'. I will not be reading any of O'Connor's other novels anytime soon. But I will certainly return to these stories. I neither withdraw nor regret any of my praise for them. June 2024)

I am always discovering authors and books decades after everyone else has, and while I regret not having read this collection before I am glad that it was one of my early discoveries of 2024. I have yet to read anything else by this author and even if everything else he writes is a disappointment he has produced here a selection of simply wonderful stories, some of them are very near perfect. In fact the finest stories are not those that follow on from, or are related to, his first novel 'Cowboys and Indians' but ones like 'Freedom of the Press', 'The Greatest of These is Love'. 'The Bedouin Feast' and 'The Long Way Home' which are unique and relate only to themselves - except in so far as they all relate to Ireland and Irish people. They are beautiful, disturbing, challenging and just bloody wonderful - I can't remember the last time I have so loved the work of a newly discovered author.

I have no intention of describing any of his stories except for one the truly magnificent and moving 'The Hills are Alive' because it is a tale of love, or at least of lust and of promise and the desire to be free and the inability to be free of our backgrounds and history and the dead weight of power to destroy happiness because, well because that is what powerful old men, and honestly it is almost always older men, do to the young and the powerless. I loved and was moved by the story, part of me fears that it may not be as good as I think, but I don't care - I recommend everyone to read it.

This is an exceptionally fine collection of stories by a talented writer who I will read more by.

[*maria* · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would recommend this book to somebody who enjoys movies where Cillian Murphy stares forlornly at the camera for extended periods of time.
This book is the epitome of 20th century male-written Irish short story collections. A prominent theme being Catholicism x Repression. The characters being extraordinarily ordinary. The dryness of the prose - O’Connor’s narrative style mirrors instructional writing wherein each movement is described concisely and chronologically. He uses vernacular language for the bulk of the word count, scattering throughout the text vocab like ‘indelible’ to remind you that he is university educated.
I picked this book up a few years ago and only managed to read it recently, fuelled by my mother’s compliments of O’Connor. I found the first third of the book to be laborious but still page turning, a little too I moved to London because that’s what Irish people do and Life is immeasurably empty and painful, no matter how hard you try to deny it for me, but, of course, this is typical for his demographic.
To his credit, O’Connor makes up for it with The Long Way Home and a few subsequent stories, where the book begins to take a turn towards the wacky, where I believe O’Connor thrives. The Hills are Alive even made me cry a little bit, and is a great example of the author’s talent in dialogue writing. I consumed this book entirely during quiet moments between calls at work, and it served its purpose wonderfully.

[Derek Bridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collections of short stories are often hit-and-miss, and this collection is no different.

These are an easy read but, for me, none is especially memorable; non stopped me in my tracks.

[Jordan Phizacklea-Cullen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Consistent, caustic but unexpectedly compassionate and moving, this is an inspired collection with reflections on the Irish diaspora in England many will recognise.

[Leyre Sanmartín · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘The hills are alive’ made me cry like a baby.

[Elsa Naemi · Rating 3 out of 5]

the hills are alive var favoriten!

[Flo Bernabucci · Rating 4 out of 5]

uno dei maggiori talenti della letteratura irlandese in questa serie di racconti, una sorta di "seguito" ideale di Gente di Dublino, ci presenta la sua Irlanda, quella della gente normale, che la rivoluzione la fa tutti i giorni per riuscire a campare come si deve, quella che sta sempre in bilico fra peccato e redenzione, fra audacia e insicurezza, fra volontà di spiccare il volo e paura di allontanarsi dal nido. Gente come noi, a Dublino come a Londra, qualche volta in cerca di fortuna, quasi sempre affannata ad inseguire una felicità che per ciascuno è diversa ma distante allo stesso modo. Personaggi bellissimi, vivi, vicini, che ci commuovono con la loro incapacità di trovare soluzioni, di agire per cambiare la loro vita. Ogni racconto ha un suo stile e una sua struttura funzionale alla storia, il carattere comune sono la semplicità ed il tono immediato di chi sembra aver vissuto ogni cosa direttamente e di chi sa che in qualcosa si deve sempre credere per ritrovare la strada di casa anche nelle situazioni peggiori.

[Mebhe]

Les premiers écrits "romanesques" de Joseph O'Connor, des nouvelles, publiées initialement dans la presse. Un humour corrosif que l'on retrouve dans la plupart de ses romans et un regard avisé sur la société irlandaise contemporaine.



La nouvelle qui m'a le plus faite rire : "L'évier" ! Un régal.

[incipit mania]

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