Secrets & Other Stories

SECRETS and Other Stories

Blackstaff Press/Vintage (1977)

Married love, male friendship, a small boy intruding upon secret adult grief, a husband contemplating infidelity - in these wonderful stories Bernard MacLaverty catches his characters at moments of epiphany, when ordinary life is set alight with sudden knowledge, memory, regret or desire.

"...  what  makes  this  collection  memorable  is  the  way  it   is charged  with  a  sense  of  Ireland  and  reverberations  of   Irish literature   -  Yeats,  Joyce,  Synge,  Flann  O'Brien  -   and   Mr MacLaverty sits perfectly comfortably with these august shades."

William  Boyd  in  The New York Times Book  Review  (  Nov  11 1984)

"Secrets  is a marvellously good collection of short  stories.  Here is  the  pain, the guilt, the desperation depicted  with  compassion and  great humour. Bernard MacLaverty manages to slip  through that  mysterious  barrier that exists between good,  serious,  well-written prose and art."

Jennifer Johnston in Hibernia (10.6.77)

Contains:

The Exercise
A Rat and some Renovations
St Paul Could Hit the Nail on the Head
A Happy Birthday
Secrets
The Miraculous Candidate
Between Two Shores
Umberto Verdi, Chimney Sweep
Where the Tides Meet
Hugo
A Pornographer Woos
A Present for Christmas
Anodyne
The Bull with the Hard Hat
The Deep End