Welcome to Litsy!

A collection of ten short stories, exquisitely told. Most build slowly, with multiple viewpoints and a layer of details of the genteel poor or the starving and all the grinding ordinariness of poverty. Most of the characters are stuck in their lives, with little hope the situation will improve. This is 1950 Ireland so there is a theme of religion. Despite the excellence of the writing a few weeks later, I have no memory of most of the stories.

A few years ago, Plunkett‘s most successful novel, 𝑆𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑡 𝐶𝑖𝑡𝑦, had a bit of a revival. I‘ve still never read it, though I had read two of his later novels. But the book of his that had really made an impression on me was this collection of short stories. I‘d hoped that it might come back into print because of the attention that 𝑆𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑡 𝐶𝑖𝑡𝑦 was drawing but no luck so far.