Heaven Lies About Us - Softcover

Eugene McCabe

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0224073400 ISBN 13: 9780224073400

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2005

Synopsis

In these twelve stories, McCabe plumbs the soul of the Irish border counties, where confusion, divided loyalties, and heightened emotions are part of everyday life, whether that life is lived in the aftermath of "the great hunger" or in the face of the current Catholic/Protestant conflict. A master of arresting dialogue and intimate characterization, Eugene McCabe demonstrates his outstanding gift for short fiction in this revelatory and haunting collection.

About this title

About the Author

Eugene McCabe was born in Glasgow in 1930. His novel Death and Nightingales, published in 1992, was described by Michael Ondaatje as 'a deeply moving, powerful, and unforgettable book'; John Banville said that it 'should put Eugene McCabe in the first rank of contemporary Irish novelists', and Colm Toibin called it 'clearly one of the great Irish masterpieces of the century'. Eugene McCabe lives in Co. Monaghan.

From Publishers Weekly

Serious with a capital "S," this book of short stories from septuagenarian Irish scribe and Butler Awardâ€"winner McCabe (Death of Nightingales; Victims; etc.) is bleak in the extreme. The tales, mostly of Irish working poor, are brimming with stark religious imagery and traditional Irish guilt and retributionâ€"his characters live with God hanging over them at every juncture, alcohol providing their only respite. McCabe is unquestionably a talented writer capable of inserting tiny details ("yellow teeth in red gums, his face white like a monk's") that vividly illuminate his characters' wretched lives. In the title story, a small child is raped by her older brother. Their mother's insistence that she part with her best friend/stuffed bear is heartbreaking, and the conclusion is more devastating still. Later, in "Victorian Fields," a woman's husband and his brother set out to steal her land; to do so, they portray her to the authorities as an incestuous whore who is carrying another man's child. The physical and emotional torture she suffers at their hands is horrific. In "Cancer," a character remarks that "Livin's worse nor dyin', and that's a fact": a recurring theme applicable to most of the stories' characters. Over the course of an entire book these chronicles of "famine, horror and hatred" are grimly unrelenting. McCabe's writing, while often quite beautiful and poetic, demands much stamina and perseverance from readers.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0224073400
• ISBN 13: 9780224073400
• Binding: Paperback