Telling: New and Selected Stories

Evelyn Conlon's `Telling' includes nine completely new stories alongside ten of the best of her previously published tales. It is a triumphant demonstration of the continuing dynamism of one of Ireland's most boldly original writers who deserves to be better known. Her characters experience at first hand the infuriating way life defies all our attempts to control it: a PR man loses his professional self-assurance; a chance encounter with an ex-lover leaves a woman with an unnerving sense of the emptiness of her marriage; a young man suddenly finds himself the underdog in his lifelong struggle with his twin brother. Such bleak moments of self-discovery are counterpointed with stories of characteristically wry humor, with Conlon poking fun at self-appointed creative artists and uncovering with deft irony the double standards that continue to bedevil dealings with men and women everywhere.