The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind - Softcover

Billy O'Callaghan

4.51

83 ratings by Goodreads

9781848402676: The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848402678 ISBN 13: 9781848402676

Publisher: New Island Books, 2013

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

The stories in Billy O Callaghan s new collection, The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind, explore how people in crisis can pick up the shattered pieces of their lives and find among them some glint of worth. An institutionalised orphan boy in 1950s Ireland is sold into servitude as a farm labourer. A once-renowned Sevillano matador falls, in a single misstep, into obscurity. A grief-stricken father struggles with the notion of reality. And a man returns home after years of exile to see the child he abandoned long ago once again. In sinuous, evocative prose, O Callaghan weaves an emotionally truthful narrative thread of hope and redemption in the face of adversity. The thirteen stories in this stunning new collection attempt to illuminate the darkness.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Product Description:

This new collection by Billy O'Callaghan explores everyday existence in the aftermath of cataclysms both subtle and overt. The characters who populate these stories are people afflicted by life and circumstance, hauled from some idyll and confronted with such real world problems as divorce, miscarriage, cancer, desertion, bereavement, and the disintegration of love. The book suggests that the human heart boasts extraordinary resilience. We bear the guilt, sorrow and regret for the things we have lost or given up, we seek the light, and we endure. These thirteen stories attempt to illuminate the darkness.

Review:

The stories here are at once harrowing and uplifting, achingly sad and surpassingly beautiful --Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

Winner of the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Award 2013 for writing.ie Short Story of the Year

The artistry ... is spellbinding --Hudson Review

A masterful storyteller ... O Callaghan flexes his literary muscle with the grace of a dancer... --Stinging Fly

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.