After a short delay, the Eason’s Book Club made a welcome return to the Dublin studios of Newstalk today, with Katherine Lynch, Mary O’Rourke, and Brian Kennedy once again joining Pat Kenny to pore over a book. This time around, it was a selection of short stories from John Boyne, who rose to fame with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. What did the panel make of Beneath the Earth?
“Bleak and bleak and bleak,” bemoaned Mary O’Rourke, who found the series of stories to be increasingly grim and hard to work through.
“Didn’t you find that once you’d started one you were gripped and had to finish it?” Pat asked Mary.
“Oh yes,” she replied, “But I was sorry I’d started it.”
A collection of a dozen dark and brooding short stories, Boyne’s collection confronts readers with difficult questions about modern life, examining it in all of its brilliance and brutality.
Taking snapshots of life from a diverse and intriguing roster of characters – including a farmer, a sexually-ambiguous teen, parents, students, sex workers, soldiers, writers, and a hitman – Beneath the Earth, Boyne’s first stab at a series of short stories promises to take the reader on a journey through other people’s lives, presenting them without prejudice or judgement.
Though it would seem that musician and writer Brian Kennedy couldn't approach the form without his own prejudices or judgements.
“You kind of think of short stories as the runt of the literary world, that these were stories that you gave up on as a writer, or there’s no more to say about the story," he said.
Katherine Lynch, on the other hand, adored the collection, finding the style and nuanced nature of the prose to be very modern and honest.
“Well I really enjoyed it," Katherine said, although she did think that short-story writing was not perhaps John Boyne's forte, but that the writing was awash with inventive language and contemporary themes.
"I think he’s a fabulist, and there’s an element of the hare and the tortoise in every story. He’s a progressive writer. So many situations where he turns it on its head. He slides himself into the story, and it really shows equality."
The collected stories examine some of the darker sides of Irish life, and the titular tale, a story about incest and murder, struck a real cord with Mary O'Rourke and Brian Kennedy.
"I made the mistake of reading that story second," Brian said, "So it kind of kicked off that theme for the rest of them. It was such a depressing, dark, awful story of an Ireland that we used to hear about but that we didn’t think existed any more, but there it was...”
Katherine was more struck by The Boy, a story about a young man who turns to prostitution as a way to make ends meet.
“For generations we’ve had gay literature and straight literature, and this is a cross over. And when it comes to The Boy, it’s important to remember that that boy does exist."
Far less enthusiastic with the collection was Valerie Bresnihan of Stillorgan, this month's reader reviewer. More prone to reading novels than short-story fiction, Valerie seemed to be on the fence about how much she liked it. Mitching from the class she was supposed to be attending to offer her take on the book, Valerie certainly thought it struck a cord, at the very least.
“Well, I thought it was a strange book," Valerie said. "It was a terrific page turner, and if I’d been sitting on a beach, awaiting a gin and tonic, well then I might’ve been able to say, ‘Well... maybe this is an enjoyable book.’ I thought it was incredibly grim, all about the bleakest side of our personalities, andit was hard to digest.”
The choice for October's book falls this time to Katherine Lynch, the first selection she'll make since joining the Eason Book Club on The Pat Kenny Show. Tune in next week to find out which of the following four books she chooses: The Maximalist by Matt Cooper, A Slanting of the Sun by Donal Ryan, Dear Cathy... Love, Mary by Mary Phelan, and John Connolly's The White Road.
You can listen back to this week's full podcast of the Eason Book club below:
