Paddy’s Reviews > The Thing About December > Status Update

“All he could do was think about how some lives are full to bursting with people, work, sport, children and fun and his own was all empty spaces where those things ought rightly be, were he the kind of man that could close his fist around opportunity and keep a tight howlt of it rather than shrinking from it and hiding in his parents house nearly too scared to even peep out for fear of failure and ridicule...”

“May is always lovely, no matter what... May was Daddy’s Mother’s name. She was a famous beauty. She could make the stones laugh, too. May was Daddy’s favourite month. Was that because it was the month his Mother was named? Maybe it was because it was a month of grace and beauty and smells that could make your heart feel like it was going to burst.”

“How could a man’s life just be made up of sadness over his dead Father, worry over his shrinking Mother and fear over his childhood enemy jumping out at him from behind the stupid IRA memorial every evening? Mother was shrinking too. She’d gone from fully upright two years ago to a small bit stooped over just after Daddy died to a little hunched-over thing, like a question mark wrapped in sorrow and silence”