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I Never Felt the Same About Again

One of the first stories I remember reading and loving from my Irish childhood is Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince (1888). It begins:

High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.

It’s a haunting fairy tale that centers on such themes as loss, seeing, duty, sacrifice, and betrayal. I admit this story still moves me, almost to the point of tears.

The full text is here.

Think how uncanny it felt to me then, all these years later, to read the following [excerpted] blurb for my story collection, Cut Through the Bone:

These stories create a sense of loss in the reader, an ache, but thankfully they avoid dull cynicism. Instead, they bear witness to the difficulty of living for oneself while sacrificing for others. In one story a woman pleads, ‘I’m here though? Tell me I’m here.’ Ethel Rohan’s stories are like testaments to all the women and men who’ve asked the same thing of the world. Those folks remain unseen to most, but this truly talented artist isn’t blind.

— Victor LaValle, author of Big Machine

Another story that stands out from my youth is Frank O’Connor’s “Guests of the Nation” (1931). It ends:

Noble says he saw everything ten times the size, as though there were nothing in the whole world but that little patch of bog with the two Englishmen stiffening into it, but with me it was as if the patch of bog where the Englishmen were was a million miles away, and even Noble and the old woman, mumbling behind me, and the birds and the bloody stars were all far away, and I was somehow very small and very lost and lonely like a child astray in the snow. And anything that happened to me afterwards, I never felt the same about again.

This is a harrowing, realist story and again centers on loss, seeing, duty, sacrifice, and betrayal.

The third story that spoke to me as a teenager in a profound way was James Joyce’s Araby. The yearning and disappointment in this story are palpable and deeply resonate. It ends:

Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.

The full text can be read here.

Those stellar Irish stories that influenced me as a child and captured my imagination have stayed, and continue to inspire me today. As an emigrant, it’s fascinating to me, too, that the three stories above also center on the lure of distant places. I’m blessed to have lived two lives: The first in Ireland and the second in America. I write from both selves, but at my core I am fiercely Irish. Everything that comes out in my writing is colored by my Irish childhood. For, to borrow from O’Connor, “anything that happened to me afterwards, I never felt the same about.”

Thus, as Necessary Fiction’s Writer-In-Residence for March, I’m honored and delighted to bring you a month-long run of excellence from a cast of contemporary Irish writers, poets, and writers of Irish-centered stories. I hope you’ll read along with us this month and give these largely international writers a warm welcome and, if so moved, some love for their work.

Please return tomorrow for our wonderful first story, “Clocking Out,” from Madeleine D’Arcy. Interestingly, it’s a haunting, realist story around themes of loss, death, seeing, sacrifice, and betrayal.

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