Foreign Affairs And Other Stories

by Seán Ó Faoláin

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Ireland, Irish Literature

422 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[David Campton · Rating 3 out of 5]

An anthology of short stories that largely documents the life of middle class Ireland in the middle of the 20th century, at home and abroad. As such it is largely devoid of romanticised tales of rural or revolutionary Ireland that makes up too much of the corpus of 20th century Irish stories, but also means that the strength of these tales lies not in dramatic storylines but in poetic turns of phrase and an impressive cast of well drawn characters. In it he exposes an uncomfortable breadth and depth of prejudice, misogyny and prevailing gloom in that sphere, but also a humanity that prevails in the face of all that.

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

O'Faolain has a knack for putting the two-faced nature of Irish social and political life on display. This is most apparent in the eponymous story of this slim but very good collection and in the appropriately titled "How To Write a Short Story". On the one hand there is the devout and morally upright Ireland of Catholic fantasy and the hallucinatory vision of Eamonn de Valera, and on the other the gritty reality of alcoholism, physical and sexual abuse, and dreary weather. One was the public face the Republic's politicians long wanted to turn to the world, and the other the private reality and shame known all too well to its citizens, but only publicly and courageously spoken by its best authors, like O'Faolain, often at great personal cost.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the last two short stories (5/5 review for them) but I think even with his vocabulary many of the other stories/ some of their dialogue does not hold up in 2023.
Not one woman was introduced without an exasperated explanation of her physical appearance and her ethnic background/ religion…

[AnneMarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always find it so hard to rate short story collections but invariably I feel very differently about each story. Stand outs here are definitely The Inside Out Complex and Murder at Cobbler's Hulk.