The stories in this collection are well written but in the main I was left wanting more. Not more stories but a deeper connection to the people in the ones I had just read, particularly as they are stories _about_ people, more than about ideas or adventures, for instance, so how you feel about the person is how you feel, generally, at the story's end. And I felt mostly dull.

I don't think this is necessarily anything unique to Irish writers, but reflects a tendency in so-called literary fiction to take a sort of dazed, distant approach to emotion and to leak away instead of resolving. This can be effective but as it is the main sense of the entire collection it leaves me feeling a bit empty at the end. A couple of stories I liked more than others, but none will linger long, I think.

The most likely to stay with me is the first story, "Time" by Seán Mac Mathúna, which studies a teacher in a prison, whose wife has left and taken their only child. I enjoyed the unfolding of Mr. Crean's interior and the strangely cloistered world around him. The movement of the story, though subtle, is distinct. I do not expect Crean to dissolve at the story's end, but to continue evolving. A good tale. ( )