Mary Lavin is the great unsung voice of Irish fiction. Here are her very best most electric
stories: illuminating moving arrows in flight. 'This is a wonderful collection and a
reminder that Mary Lavin was - is - one of Ireland's greatest writers' Roddy Doyle Mary
Lavin's stories feature ordinary people in the tight confines of ordinary life. From rural
Ireland and the streets of Dublin they charm irritate and intrigue in complicated brilliance
appearing to us with unique freshness. Good friendships bad deeds frustrations missteps
hope and laughter are all found in captivating stories where real and astonishing things
happen. Few women were so consistently published in the New Yorker and yet today Lavin's work
is largely unpublished and overlooked. This collection re-establishes her as one of the most
genius irresistible and memorable voices of the last century. SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY
COLM TÓIBÍN 'She is to come right out with it magnificent' New York Times 'A feast of
quiet humour and heartbreak' Emma Donoghue 'Mary Lavin's stories conjure sadness profundity
hilarity and wildness out of thin air. They are simply masterful' Colin Barrett 'Mary
Lavin's stories are a delight. They are delicate but not too delicate to carry tragedy on one
shoulder and comedy on the other' Sunday Times
