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Prosperity Drive
‘A wonderful writer’ Hilary MantelAll of life is laid bare in Prosperity Drive. A woman falls and remembers a moment decades earlier that changed the course of her life. A failed priest teaches children to swim at the YMCA. A teenage girl takes a spanner to the car of the young man who has driven her home. A honeymoon in Venice goes disastrously wrong. A man is reunited with his first love in an airport departure lounge. All of the characters begin their journeys on Prosperity Drive, appear and disappear, bump into each other in chance encounters, and join up again through love, marriage or memory in this mesmerising book.
292 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 7, 2016
11 people are currently reading
97 people want to read
About the author
Mary Morrissy
23 books19 followersMary Morrissy (born 1957 Dublin) is an Irish writer. Morrissy was educated at the Rathmines School of Journalism. She worked in Australia, and as a sub-editor of The Irish Press. She taught creative writing for the University of Arkansas, and University of Iowa creative writing summer programmes.
She was a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library, for her work-in-progress, The Duchess, an imagined autobiography of Bella O'Casey, the sister of Seán O'Casey. In 2008 - 09, she was Jenny McKean Moore "Writer in Washington" at George Washington University, Washington DC.
Her novel "Mother of Pearl" was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and longlisted for the Orange Prize in 1996.
She was a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library, for her work-in-progress, The Duchess, an imagined autobiography of Bella O'Casey, the sister of Seán O'Casey. In 2008 - 09, she was Jenny McKean Moore "Writer in Washington" at George Washington University, Washington DC.
Her novel "Mother of Pearl" was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and longlisted for the Orange Prize in 1996.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 10, 2017
In Dublin's fair city...
Mary Morrissy gives us a series of eighteen interlinked stories that together form a narrative arc almost novel-like in construction. The central linking thread is that the protagonists of the stories live or at one time lived on Prosperity Drive in Dublin, a street of unremarkable semi-detached red-brick houses.
The writing is knockout. Delicious descriptive sentences, humanity writ small and recognisable, wry humour amidst tragedy, a real ability to convey what ordinary people think and feel. The only stories that failed to work for me were the ones where the author transfers her characters to America; there, I felt her touch wasn’t quite so assured. But really, that’s a minor quibble in a very good read.
Here’s a flavour of the writing, as Mary Morrissy relates the impressions of a country girl newly arrived in Dublin: “Edel would remember this time as a kind of courtship. A courtship with the city itself in which the crowded tram rides to the sea and the smogged rough and tumble of the municipal baths were like shyly offered gifts. She liked the city’s mix of serious grandeur – the pot-bellied former parliament, the flint-faced university, the declamatory statues of patriots – and the slatternly charm of the streets with their fruit sellers, their littered pavements, the garish fluorescence of ice-cream parlours. It was just such a mixture of gravity and contingency that she wanted in a man.”
Mary Morrissy gives us a series of eighteen interlinked stories that together form a narrative arc almost novel-like in construction. The central linking thread is that the protagonists of the stories live or at one time lived on Prosperity Drive in Dublin, a street of unremarkable semi-detached red-brick houses.
The writing is knockout. Delicious descriptive sentences, humanity writ small and recognisable, wry humour amidst tragedy, a real ability to convey what ordinary people think and feel. The only stories that failed to work for me were the ones where the author transfers her characters to America; there, I felt her touch wasn’t quite so assured. But really, that’s a minor quibble in a very good read.
Here’s a flavour of the writing, as Mary Morrissy relates the impressions of a country girl newly arrived in Dublin: “Edel would remember this time as a kind of courtship. A courtship with the city itself in which the crowded tram rides to the sea and the smogged rough and tumble of the municipal baths were like shyly offered gifts. She liked the city’s mix of serious grandeur – the pot-bellied former parliament, the flint-faced university, the declamatory statues of patriots – and the slatternly charm of the streets with their fruit sellers, their littered pavements, the garish fluorescence of ice-cream parlours. It was just such a mixture of gravity and contingency that she wanted in a man.”
June 28, 2019
Después de leer la versión de “An Encounter” de Mary Morrissy en Dubliners 100 empecé a buscar el resto de su obra. En una entrevista venían todos los libros que había escrito hasta antes de Dubliners 100 y el que más llamó mi atención fue éste.
Lo único que puedo decir es que no esperaba reencontrarme con Hetty Gardner en otra historia.
Léanlo en orden o en desorden, no hay forma correcta de leer estos cuentos. Todos están conectados por Prosperity Drive... Y si después tienen tiempo, lean el cuento de Morrissy en Dubliners 100. Vale toda la pena del mundo.
Lo único que puedo decir es que no esperaba reencontrarme con Hetty Gardner en otra historia.
Léanlo en orden o en desorden, no hay forma correcta de leer estos cuentos. Todos están conectados por Prosperity Drive... Y si después tienen tiempo, lean el cuento de Morrissy en Dubliners 100. Vale toda la pena del mundo.
November 24, 2020
Lovely collection of sad stories.
November 14, 2021
I just couldn't get into this book. The first chapter full of unlikeable characters, and the second chapter made me hugely uncomfortable.
Not for me.
Not for me.
May 30, 2018
This group of linked stories really does verge on becoming a novel. The approach reminds me of the work of Elizabeth Strout, but Morrisy is a much more elegant writer. It actually read as close to five stars for me, though a few of the stories did not work so well.
No story is shorter than eleven pages, which leaves time for each to develop and have some impact.
The stories are loosely linked, though they never present a complete picture. Norah Elworthy is the center of the collection, appearing in at least six of the eighteen stories. The reader encounters her at several points in her life -- a child, a young woman and more than once in her mid-to-late 30's. As with Strout, characters in one story frequently appear in the background in another. One background character, Hetty Gardner, never makes it to the foreground.
This is not an upbeat collection, by the way. As I write this, I can't remember any moment of happiness for a character that is at all sustained. It's a fairly sad book, though (unusual for me) it did not depress me or make me like it less. The women in the story are often drifting in life and uncertain, and the men are stuck in their ways or unlikable or both. There is a fair amount of death (including a couple of suicides) and illness.
Still, I really liked the writing and the controlled way in which Morissy delivers new information to the reader, and the characters are real and memorable. I guess it has to be ok to write a collection of stories with a "life is hard" theme. It was a pleasure to read this and I look forward to more from this author.
No story is shorter than eleven pages, which leaves time for each to develop and have some impact.
The stories are loosely linked, though they never present a complete picture. Norah Elworthy is the center of the collection, appearing in at least six of the eighteen stories. The reader encounters her at several points in her life -- a child, a young woman and more than once in her mid-to-late 30's. As with Strout, characters in one story frequently appear in the background in another. One background character, Hetty Gardner, never makes it to the foreground.
This is not an upbeat collection, by the way. As I write this, I can't remember any moment of happiness for a character that is at all sustained. It's a fairly sad book, though (unusual for me) it did not depress me or make me like it less. The women in the story are often drifting in life and uncertain, and the men are stuck in their ways or unlikable or both. There is a fair amount of death (including a couple of suicides) and illness.
Still, I really liked the writing and the controlled way in which Morissy delivers new information to the reader, and the characters are real and memorable. I guess it has to be ok to write a collection of stories with a "life is hard" theme. It was a pleasure to read this and I look forward to more from this author.
May 21, 2016
Edel Elworthy is confused about most things, but she’s pretty sure that her adult daughter, Norah, who has moved back into her childhood home on Prosperity Drive to care for her, is aware that she’s fallen at the top of the stairs. But she “thinks she understands why lately Norah has refused to come running. Payback” (p4). Though there’s something she feels she ought to tell her if only she could form the words.
Full review:http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecdo...
Full review:http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecdo...
May 25, 2016
Very disappointing book. Seemed to me like a book of poor short stories linked only by the road the characters used to live on. It got to the stage where I was reading just to finish the book.
December 16, 2016
Fine collection of linked short stories: Overlooked Book of the Year
December 5, 2021
2,5 stars 💫
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews