The Interval

by Vincent O'Sullivan

A short story first published in The Boston Evening Transcript, 1917. Included in "26 Mystery Stories, New and Old," edited by Ernest Rhys and C. A. Dawson-Scott, 1928. Listed in the longlist of "The Best American Short Stories of the Century," edited by John Updike and Katrina Kenison, 2000.

Genres: Short Stories

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 1917

About the author

Vincent O'Sullivan was an American short story writer, poet and critic. Born in New York City to Eugene and Christine O'Sullivan, he began his education in the New York public school system and completed it in Britain. He lived comfortably in London, traveling often to France, until in 1909 he lost his income from the family coffee business when his brother Percy made a spectacularly mistimed futures gamble at the New York Coffee Exchange. The entire family was ruined, and Vincent was destitute for the remaining years of his life.

His works dealt with the morbid and decadent. He was a friend of Oscar Wilde (to whom in his disgrace he was often generous), Leonard Smithers, Aubrey Beardsley and other fin-de-siècle figures. O'Sullivan produced his first collection of supernatural fiction, A Book of Bargains, in 1896. It contains the pact-with the devil story "The Bargain of Rupert Orange", and The Business of Madame Jahn and "My Enemy and Myself", which both feature reanimated corpses. "When I Was Dead" (1905), "Verschoyle's House" (1915) and "The Burned House" (1916) are ghost stories, while "Will" is a tale of psychic vampirism.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Vincent^^O'Sullivan

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Her husband Hugh died but his wife still sees him every day in fleeting moments. She is going to a clairvoyant but the encounters are going on. Is there a solution for Mrs Wilton? Is there a way for her to start a new lifing? At the end the story has a fine twist. Overall it was a good read but nothing too extraordinary.

[#DÏ4B7Ø Chinnamasta-Bhairav]

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To SEE a WORLD in a Grain of Sand,
And a HEAVEN in a Wild Flower,
Hold INFINITY in the palm of your hand
And ETERNITY in an Hour"
~ William Blake ~

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Form is Emptiness; Emptiness is form.
Form is not different than Emptiness;
Emptiness is not different than form
~ Heart Sutra ~

Like the ocean and its waves,
inseparable yet distinct

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" I and The Father are one,
I am The Truth,
The Life and The Path.”

Like a river flowing from its source,
connected and continuous

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Thy kingdom come.
Let the reign of divine
Truth, Life, and Love
be established in me,
and rule out of me all sin;
and may Thy Word
enrich the affections of all mankind

A mighty oak tree standing firm against the storm,
As sunlight scatters the shadows of night
A river nourishing the land it flows through

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[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25⭐

Mrs. Wilton is desperate to know that her husband, who was killed in the war in India, has not forgotten her in death. She seeks out spiritualists and begins to see her beloved husband in all the places they used to go together. She calls out to him, but he never speaks to her. Is he there to guide her to her own death?

[Caitlin Ball · Rating 3 out of 5]

An unsettling story which sets the yearning heart on edge. A mixture of pity, mystery and hope attach us to the main character, whose only wish is to see her husband one last time. Searching for him in the afterlife she seeks the aid of a soothsayer in hopes that they might show him to her.