A Bad Day to be Winning

Hugh Oliver is Editor-in-Chief, OISE Press.

Most of this collection of about half a dozen short stories is set in
Northern Ireland (one takes place in Dublin, but its characters are from
the North), and they span a time frame covering the first 60 years of
this century.

After the first two stories, I felt I’d have difficulty plowing my
way through the rest. Their style was self-consciously poetic—and not
especially memorable poetry at that!—and I was having to work hard to
discover who was talking to whom or when or why. But a couple of the
later stories picked up a bit—they were more focused and less
confused. In particular, I liked “Tidbits,” in which a teenage
girl’s beauty alienates her from her family and acquaintances.

The stories are essentially a series of character sketches, with the
plots relatively inconsequential. And as with pencil sketches, the
simpler and less overdrawn they are, the better the result.