Shadow Voices: 300 years of Irish Genre Fiction, A History in Stories

by John Connolly

Lemuel Gulliver, Dracula, Narnia — the history of Irish fiction is a history of genre fiction: horror, romantic fiction, science fiction, crime writing, and more. Irish writers have produced pioneering tales of detection, terrifying ghost stories, and ground-breaking women’s popular fiction. In a single volume, John Connolly presents the history of Irish genre writing and uses it to explore how we think about fiction itself.

Deeply researched and passionately argued, SHADOW VOICES takes the lives of more than sixty writers – by turns tragic, amusing, and adventurous, but always extraordinary – and sets them alongside the stories they have written, to create a new way of looking at genre and literature, both Irish and beyond. Here are vampires and monsters, murderers and cannibals. Here are female criminal masterminds and dogged detectives, star-crossed lovers and vengeful spouses.

Here are the SHADOW VOICES.

Genres: Short Stories, Anthologies

1008 pages, Hardcover

Published October 28, 2021

About the author

John Connolly was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1968 and has, at various points in his life, worked as a journalist, a barman, a local government official, a waiter and a dogsbody at Harrods department store in London. He studied English in Trinity College, Dublin and journalism at Dublin City University, subsequently spending five years working as a freelance journalist for The Irish Times newspaper, to which he continues to contribute.

He is based in Dublin but divides his time between his native city and the United States.

This page is administered by John's assistant, Clair, on John's behalf. If you'd like to communicate with John directly, you can do so by writing to contact-at-johnconnollybooks.com, or by following him on Twitter at @JConnollyBooks.

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Reviews

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinarily ambitious effort to present 300 years of literary history through stories by dozens of Irish genre writers, many of them sadly overlooked and some entirely forgotten. Connolly is best known for his Charlie Parker mystery novels, and readers looking for Parker here will be disappointed; but anyone interested in the origins of crime fiction, science fiction/fantasy, romance and gothic stories will find much to interest and entertain.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

First half.

This 1078-page book is a massive labor of love.

John Connolly believes that Irish genre fiction has been unappreciated. He never actually defines genre fiction. Many of the stories in the first half of this volume fit any reasonable definition. Romance stories published in woman's magazines, or mystery or horror stories published in publications like "Pearson's Weekly" or "Lippincott's Weekly" would be fairly classified as genre stories.

James Joyce's "Two Gallants" from "The Dubliners", Jonathon Swift's "A Modest Proposal", or the various folk stories and fables included in this collection, would not usually be considered genre fiction. Of course. if you define genre fiction as romance, adventure, speculative or mystery stories, almost anything can be considered genre fiction.

I was not bothered by the shaggy definition of genre fiction. This is a wonderful broad collection of stories. Connolly counts any story written by an author born and raised as in Ireland, so we get a story from Fitz-James O'Brien who was killed in the American Civil War and Mary Helene Fortune who had a long literary career in Australia.

Each story has a three or four-page introduction by Connolly which does a good job giving a short life of the author and setting them in the story of Irish literature.

Connolly, who is a very popular author of mystery stories, has done an amazing job of recapturing a tradition of Irish story telling.

The first 520 pages of this book takes us from 1729 to 1915. I am looking forward to the last 558 pages dealing with the last century or so.

[Dan Downing · Rating 5 out of 5]

This massive bundle of pages required special handling in order to be read. Being a collection of short pieces it also needed a specific approach to reading, as short story collections generally do. The process of engaging with a piece, settling in and then disengaging requires shifting attention several times for each entry. In this case, there are also introductory essays that include brief biographies for each story. Add to that the changing from horror to fantasy to mystery to the occult, and Mr. Connolly has delivered a demanding if erudite work.
As a history of Ireland in stories the volume works because of the introductions. If we had only the literary work we would be blind and lost. The depth and breadth added by Mr. Connolly make this his book as well as a collection belonging to the masses of Irish writers across the centuries.
One must give a nod to the wonderful editing found here. There are a few errors, yes, although very few and minor ones. Altogether, a fine addition for the Irish reader.

Highly Recommended

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Massive and comprehensive examination of Irish genre literature. (The volume is so huge it could be used for weight training.) Connolly provides an introductory essay for each entry that provides context in terms of Irish history, mores and cultural movements. Connolly is a favorite author and the introductions revealed so much about his interests and passions. (I had no idea he was such a champion of women authors.)

[Joey, The Dragon Reread · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been a huge fan of John Connolly for a couple years now. When I saw that he had edited this book as a "COVID passion project," I knew I was interested.

Connolly has gathered an exhaustive collection of Irish genre fiction from the 1700s to present day. The true gems of this collection are his historical notes on the authors of each story and how the story fits into the larger literary context.

As someone who is interested in both crime/supernatural fiction as well as Irish history, this book is a win-win.

As with any collection as extensive as this, there were some stories that I loved, some that were fine (but were important historically). I found some authors I'll be pursuing further because of how much I liked Connolly's story choice.

Overall, would highly recommend for anyone who is a lover of the short story and Irish literary history.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent look at the history of Irish genre fiction spanning 300 years. It contains a collection of short stories of different genres, with a history of the authors. It introduced me to the works of authors I'd never read before.