Dinosaurs On Other Planets by Danielle McLaughlin (2015, a collection of short stories)

My Q and A with Daniielle McLaughlin

Ethel Rohan's Wonderful Guest Post on Danielle McLaughlin

I first encountered the work of Danielle McLaughlin during an extended Irish Short Story month in July of 2012 when I read her prize winning short story "Bewitched".  At that time I had included her as one of the writers featured in my Emerging Irish Women Writers segment.  I went on to post over the next few years on several more of her stories, Ethel Rohan kindly did a guest post on one of McLaughlin's short stories.  I am very proud of the Q and A session in which McLaughlin graciously and insightfully responded to my question. 

Now four years later with two short stories published in The New Yorker and a collection of her short stories, Dinosaurs On Other Planets recently published by The Stinging Fly I feel safe in saying she has way transcended the category in which I, with scant knowledge of what I was doing,placed her.

I find posting on collections of short stories quite challenging. My method is to post on some of the stories in the collection,then try to make  remarks about what the stories might be said to have in common concluding with my thoughts on who might enjoy and appreciate the collection.  For those who want cut to the bottom line,I highly recommend this collection to all lovers of the form.  

The Art of Footbinding 

"The Art of Footbinding" is the lead story in the collection.  The story begins with a quotation from a manual on traditional Chinese Footbinding.  My first thought was to wonder how this will be connected to the plot. The plot  opens with a woman returning home.  The cleaning lady has just finished and the house has an overly antiseptic feel.  We soon learn that the teacher of her teenage daughter is introducing the students to Footbinding.  The interlaced descriptions of Footbinding are calmly horrific.  I begin to wonder is the process of school and middle class upbringing a kind of Footbinding meant to limit the horizons of the daughter.  We learn in just a few pages  about the dynamics of the family.  The ending was very powerful.   It is, among other things, a coda on parenting.  

Those That I Fight I Do Not Hate

The second story in the collection, "Those I Fight I Do Not Hate", a famous line from Yeats, is a closely observed domestic story taking place at party for a girl in her late teens.   It is an awkward occasion.  The central figure in the story is Kevin and  his exwife at whose house,once theirs,the party is held.  She lives there now with her new husband Bob  and her daughter.  Bob collects W W One air war memorabilia.  McLaughlin's interplay of this and the family drama between Kevin, his exwife and their daughter is brilliant.  Kevin is now out of work and has been so a while. The man who made him redundant is there adding to the undercurrent of pain.  Kevin  has to smile through the patronizing attitudes of those who ask if has yet found work.  Like many a father, he struggles to see his daughter grow into a woman.  There are a lot of complex emotions in  story,a minatture master work that for me echoed the influence of Kstherine Mansfield.  Like the prior story, a teenage girl,plays a kind of intermediary role in a troubled marriage. I read it three times and it really should be read twice at least.  

All About Alice

"All About Alice" is truly great story, shockingly powerful. 

On the strength of it alone,I would say buy this collection.  Alice is 45, unmarried, ives with her elderly   widowed father.  Her dad is getting ready to leave for his annual outing with his cousin Olive. Alice cherishes this time alone where she can do whatever she likes for a week without having to explain her comings and goings to her father.  Alice goes to visit her friend,a married woman. The friend tells her married life is not all fun and games.

jShe suggests Alice try to meet a man while her father is gone.  She tells her maybe she needs to go to Dublin to find one. She tells Alice to come to the barbecue she is hosting for her husband's soccer team.  There will be men there and " no need to tell them how old you are".  Alice meets what seems aMiddle Eastern man at the party.  Without being asked, she gives him her number.  He never calls and the story takes an amazing turn when Alice decides to stalk him at soccer practice.  I  hope you will read this story and marvel at the ending as much as I did.  I think it tells a lot about the Irish attitude toward sex.

Night of the Silver Foxes

"Night of the Silver Foxes, story five, tells a story centering around the mink farm industry in rural Ireland.  If you ever had an interest in having a mink coat, after reading this story you will probably be repelled by the thought.  Our story begins in a truck on a road in rural Iteland delivering fish meal to a mink farm.  The young man driving is the son of the fish meal company owner.  With him is his helper, an old friend. It is a hard dirty business that seems to leave you permanently smelling of fish.  The helper has not been paid for three weeks and likewise the mink farm they are on the way to has not paid in three weeks.   This time the plan is cash upfront or no delivery.  The wife of them mink farm left the farm owner and  their daughter for another man years ago.  The depiction of the farm is totally perfect, the story  exactly exemplifies the impact of a weak Irish father on his daughter.  The ending is just so sad, beautiful heartbreak.  This is a story that will stay with me.  

Dinosaurs On Other Planets

"Dinosaurs On Other Planets, is the collection's title story.  It was previously published in The New Yorker.  "Dinosaurs On Other Planets" is set in rural Ireland.  In just a few pages McLaughli does a masterful job of letting us see many years of family dynamics.  One of the things one sees through out Irish literature is the treatment of the surface emotional reticence of the Irish.   You can see this in Dubliners and Patrick Kavanagh's majestic poem, "The Great Hunger".  "Dinosaurs On Other Planets" is in this great tradition.   The story is set at the home of a long married couple.  The wife is fifty one, the husband much older.  He is retired and spends a lot of time wood working.   They have not slept together for a year and are  living in London. 

The daughter is coming with her son and her new boyfriend for a visit.  The parents don't want her or their grandson to know they are estranged.  There is no hate, the passion, if there ever was much, is gone.  I don't want to reveal more of the plot.  I think you will enjoy finding out what the story has to do with dinosaurs on other planets, I did.

Declain  Kiberd has said the dominant theme of modern Irish literature is that of the weak or missing Irish father.  In my opinion this story exemplifies this.  Mclaugkin talks about this in her Q and A.  It is treated in several of the stories in this collection as well as other of her stories.

In the Act of Falling

In my reading of Irish literature I have been very influenced by Declan Kiberd's monumental work, Inventing Ireland - The Literature of the Modern Nation.  Kiberd helped me see modern Irish literature, post George Moore and Dubliners through the post colonial perspective developed by Edward Said and Franz Fanon.  Kiberd's central thesis is that the basic core theme of modern Irish literature is that of the weak or missing father.   I was very intrigued to see the figure of the weak father playing a central part in McLaughlin's story "In the Act of Falling".

One of the other themes I find in the stories of McLaughlin is that of the cultural impact of the intersection of people from very different worlds. We see that in "All About Alice"

  We see this in "Midnight at Ali's King Kehab Takeaway" and "The Governor's Gin", you can find links to these stories in my prior posts on McLaughlin.  Sometimes lonely isolates become attracted to the occult or visions of an alternative apocalyptic world which takes them out of a world they don't like and don't succeed in or fit in well.  This is in several of her stories.  This ties in with the theme of the missing father, manifesting itself as an eroding cultural base.  "In the Act of Falling" is set in the recession that followed the fall of the Irish economy, just about ten years ago. All you have to do is to take a quick scan of the economic and political headlines about Ireland to see a vision of a country whose leaders, the politicians and the Catholic Church, have failed.  

I don't want to give away much of the plot of this very rich story.  The story centers on an Irish married couple with one son, maybe ten.  The father was recently made redundant from a decent job and now just plays the role of house husband and kind of pretends to look for job.  McLaughlin does just a wonderful job of showing us how this impacts their marriage as the wife becomes the only earner and the husband spirals into a cocoon of odd near occult preoccupations. 

Omnimously looming over the marriage but lurking way in the background, is a mysterious woman and a sinister seeming man who are working their way into the psyche of the man. His condition as a weakened father has left him vulnerable to darker realities or fantasies than he otherwise might have been.  An excellent edition to the great tradition of the Irish short story. 

You can read this story HERE

A Different Country

"A Different Country" by Danielle McLaughlin is a very powerful story centering on the visit of a woman from Dubin, in the company of her boyfriend, to his family home in rural Ireland.  Both are university students.   She seems to be a Dublin person.   They are visiting his brother and his pregnant girlfriend, almost ready to deliver. The woman feels left out as the talk turns to people from her boyfriend's past.  They are on the Irish seacoast, one of the world's most beautiful places.  The opening lines of the story,quoted above, have an  the almost overpowering beauty, especially for an urban person, marvelously captured.  Rural life is not all basking in the beauty.  In a very dramatic scene the woman sees and may join in a violent hunt for seals, who steal catches from the nets of fisherman.   

The stiry breems with life, from the near to birth girl friend to the potential deadly sea. The woman begins to see her boyfriend in a different way as she gradually goes from a Dublin university accent to a country one.  

There are four other stories in the collection, all first rate.

Dinosaurs From Other Planets is a collection any lover of short stories will cherish.  The Irish are the masters of the short story and McLaughlin is  in the  tradition begun by James Joyce's Dubliners.  Like the stories of the great John McGahern her stories are mostly set in rural Ireland.  Several of her stories deal with the very Irish theme of the weak father.  She deals with strains in relationships in a very insightful fashion.  Her stories very rooted in the Irish countryside but the themes are universal.  

I give this collection my highest endorsement.  These are stories you can read slowly and let the exquisite prose flow over you while the characters sink into your consciousness.  As I read these stories I felt the contrast between the wonderfully rendered beauty of rural Ireland and the deadly traps set for the people.  In the stories focusing on the young, i wonder if any will escape.  For sure these stories will make you think.  

I look forward to following Danielle McLaughlin for many years. 

Author Bio- from Webpage of West Cork Literary Festival

Danielle McLaughlin’s stories have appeared in various journals, newspapers and anthologies, including The New Yorker, The Irish Times, Southword, The Penny Dreadful, Long Story Short and The Stinging Fly. They have also appeared in various anthologies, such as the Bristol Prize Anthology, the Fish Anthology and the 2014 Davy Byrnes Anthology, and have been broadcast on RTE Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4. She has won various awards for her short fiction, including the William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Competition, the From the Well Short Story Competition, The Willesden Herald International Short Story Prize, The Merriman Short Story Competition in memory of Maeve Binchy, and the Dromineer Literary Festival Short Story Competition. Danielle was awarded an Arts Council Bursary in 2013. Her debut collection of short stories, Dinosaurs On Other Planets, was published in Ireland in 2015 by The Stinging Fly Press and in the UK in 2016 by John Murray. The collection was shortlisted for the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards 2015 in the Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year category. She lives in County Cork with her husband and three young children and is currently working on a number of new short stories and a novel.

Mel u

"In the Act of Falling" by Danielle McLaughlin - from The New Yorker,September 7, 2015

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My Q and A with Danielle McLaughlin

Ethel Rohan's Guest Post on Danielle McLaughlin

My post on "Bewitched" 

My post on "Midnight at Ali's King Kehab Takeaway"


My Post on "The Dinosaurs on Other Planets" - Danielle McLaughlin's First New Yorker Story

My Post on "The Governor's Gin", a great story set among the British Raj

(All of these stories can as of now be read online.)

I have been a devoted follower of the work of Danielle McLaughlin ever since I read her amazing short story, "Bewitched" on July 5, 2012.  At that time I was doing a feature on "Emerging Irish Women Writers".  I have happily watched several of the writers I featured begin to take their place on the world literary stage.  With two short stories published in The New Yorker in the last twelve months and a forthcoming collection of short stories to be published by The Stinging Fly, The Dinosaurs on Other Planets has certainly transcended the category of emerging writer.  

In my reading of Irish literature I have been very influenced by Declan Kiberd's monumental work, Inventing Ireland - The Literature of the Modern Nation.  Kiberd helped me see modern Irish literature, post George Moore and Dubliners through the post colonial perspective developed by Edward Said and Franz Fanon.  Kiberd's central thesis is that the basic core theme of modern Irish literature is that of the weak or missing father.  After "Midnight at Ali's King Kehab Takeaway" which directly focuses on this theme with three missing fathers in the story I was very intrigued to see the figure of the weak father playing a central part in McLaughlin's latest story "In the Act of Falling".

One of the other themes I find in the stories of McLaughlin is that of the cultural impact of the intersection of people from very different worlds.  We see this in "Midnight at Ali's King Kehab Takeaway" and "The Governor's Gin".  Sometimes lonely isolates become attracted to the occult or visions of an alternative apocalyptic world which takes them out of a world they don't like and don't succeed in or fit in well.  This is in several of her stories.  This ties in with the theme of the missing father, manifesting itself as an eroding cultural base.  "In the Act of Falling" is set in the recession that followed the fall of the Irish economy, just about ten years ago. All you have to do is to take a quick scan of the economic and political headlines about Ireland to see a vision of a country whose leaders, the politicians and the Catholic Church, have failed.  

I don't want to give away much of the plot of this very rich story, my main purpose in posting is to let my readers know her latest story can be read in The New Yorker and to journalize my reading experience.  The story centers on an Irish married couple with one son, maybe ten.  The father was recently made redundant from a decent job and now just plays the role of house husband and kind of pretends to look for job.  McLaughlin does just a wonderful job of showing us how this impacts their marriage as the wife becomes the only earner and the husband spirals into a cocoon of odd near occult preoccupations. 

Omnimously looming over the marriage but lurking way in the background, is a mysterious woman and a sinister seeming man who are working their way into the psyche of the man. His condition as a weakened father has left him vulnerable to darker realities or fantasies than he otherwise might have been.  

You can read this story HERE

Danielle McLaughlin’s stories have appeared in newspapers and magazines such as The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, The South Circular, Southword, The Penny Dreadful, Long Story,Short and The New Yorker. She has won various awards for her short fiction, including the William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Competition 2012, The From the Well short story competition 2012, The Willesden Short Story Prize 2013, The Merriman Short Story Competition 2013 in memory of Maeve Binchy, and the Dromineer Literary Festival Short Story Competition 2013.  She was shortlisted for the Writing.ie Irish Short Story of the Year category in the Irish Book Awards in 2013 and 2014, and her story ‘The Dinosaurs on Other Planets’ was shortlisted for the Davy Byrnes Award 2014.  Her stories have been broadcast on RTE Radio, and have been published in various anthologies, including The Salt Anthology of New Writing 2013, What’s the Story? (2014) a selection of new Irish writing from the Stinging Fly Press in association with Solas Nua, Washington, The Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology 2014, and Davy Byrnes Stories 2014. She was awarded an Arts Council bursary in 2013 and has read her work at various events in Ireland and the UK, including the London Short Story Festival 2014 and the Cork International Short Story Festival 2014. She is currently Editor for Short Stories in English for Southword Journal. Her debut collection of short stories Dinosaurs on Other Planets will be published in Ireland in autumn 2015 by The Stinging Fly Press, and in the UK and US by John Murray and Random House. She lives in Donoughmore, County Cork with her husband and three children. -from webpage of West Cork Literary Festival

I am greatly looking forward, I hope, to many years ahead reading more by Danielle McLaughlin.

"Dinosaurs On Other Planets" by Danielle McLaughlin (from The New Yorker, September 15, 2014)

Ethel Rohan's Guest Post on Danielle McLaughlin


My Q and A with Danielle McLaughlin

I have been following the literary career of Danielle McLaughlin for almost there years now. She has very kindly participated in a wide ranging very informative Q and A session which anyone interested in the short story should read.  I have posted on three of her short stories.   One of the very rewarding aspects of blogging on contemporary writers is seeing them gain increasing recognition for their talents.  For a short story writer being published in The New Yorker Is about as good as it gets.  I was very happy to find Danielle's story "Dinosaurs On Other Planets" in the September 15th issue.   It is the title story of a collection of her short stories being published next year by The Stinging Fly.  The Stinging Fly is Ireland's leading literary journal and a world class publication of high quality short stories and poetry.   They launched the career of Kevin Barry and published the 2014 Frank O'Connor Prize Best Short Story collection winner Young Skins by Colin Barry.  

One of my purposes here is to let my readers know that this story can be read online. (I will include a link at the close of the post.)  "Dinosaurs On Other Planets" is set in rural Ireland.  In just a few pages Danielle does a masterful job of letting us see many years of family dynamics.  One of the things one sees through out Irish literature is the treatment of the surface emotional reticence of the Irish.   You can see this in Dubliners and Patrick Kavanagh's majestic poem, "The Great Hunger".  "Dinosaurs On Other Planets" is in this great tradition.   The story is set at the home of a long married couple.  The wife is fifty one, the husband much older.  He is retired and spends a lot of time wood working.   They have not slept together for a year and their living in London now adult daughter's bedroom is where the husband now sleeps.

The daughter is coming with her son and her new boyfriend for a visit.  The parents don't want her or their grandson to know they are estranged.  There is no hate, the passion, if there ever was much, is gone.  I don't want to reveal more of the plot.  I think you will enjoy finding out what the story has to do with dinosaurs on other planets, I did.

Declain  Kiberd has said the dominant theme of modern Irish literature is that of the weak or missing Irish father.  In my opinion this story exemplifies this.  Danielle talks about this in her Q and A.

You can find the story here 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/15/dinosaurs-planets

I greatly enjoyed reading this story and I am avidly looking forward to her collection.  

Danielle McLaughlin lives in County Cork, Ireland. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Stinging Fly, The Salt Anthology of New Writing 2013, Willesden Herald New Short Stories 7, The Long Story Short, The Irish Times, The Burning Bush 2, Inktears, Southword, 

Crannóg, Hollybough, on the RTE TEN website, on RTE Radio and in various anthologies. She has won a number of prizes for short fiction, including the Writing Spirit Award for Fiction 2010, The From the Well Short Story Competition 2012, The William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Competition 2012, the Willesden Herald Short Story Competition 2012-2013 and the Merriman Short Story Competition in memory of Maeve Binchy.

"The Governor's Gin" by Danielle McLaughlin

I as very happy to see that one of my favorite literary journals Long Story Short, which focuses on short stories longer than 4000 words, published as their latest offering a short story by Danielle McLaughlin.  I first became familiar with her work during Irish Short Story Month II last year when Ethel Rohan did a guest post on one of McLaughlin's stories.   This year during ISSM Year III I posted on an excellent story by McLaughlin "Midnight at Ali King's Kebab Take Away" and she also participated in a very interesting Q and A session.

"The Governor's Gin" is set in India  on the estate of a member of the British Raj. There are two very contrasting sets of characters in this story.  We have the personal servants of the governor, a family of a woman and her sons and on the other hand we have the governor and his eighteen year old wife.  The male servants speak among themselves of the longed for day on which they will make a drinking cup from the skull of the governor, while practicing complete servility.  The governor's wife, little more than a spoiled child speaks contemptuously of the servants as "little dark Hindus".   The governor is angry because they are out of his favorite gin and a ship is do to arrive.

This is a really well done story that lets us see how the British and their Indian servants viewed each other.   There is some exciting plot action regarding the young wife, who you will come to hate.

You can read the story Here.

Danielle McLaughlin lives in County Cork. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Stinging Fly, The Salt Anthology of New Writing 2013, Willesden Herald New Short Stories 7, The Irish Times, The Burning Bush 2, Inktears, Southword, Boyne Berries, Crannóg, Hollybough, on the RTE TEN website, on RTE Radio and in various anthologies. She has won a number of prizes for short fiction, including the Writing Spirit Award for Fiction 2010, The From the Well Short Story Competition 2012, The William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Competition 2012, the Willesden Herald Short Story Competition 2012-2013 and the Merriman Short Story Competition in memory of Maeve Binchy. Visit Southword Journal to read another story by Danielle McLaughlin.

 

Mel u

  

Danielle McLaughlin A Question and Answer Session with author of Dinosaurs from other Planets

March 1 to April 28

A Q and A with

Danielle McLaughlin

County Cork Ireland
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Ethel Rohan's Guest Post on Danielle McLaughlin

My post on "Bewitched"

My post on "Midnight at Ali's King Kehab Takeaway"

Danielle McLaughlin lives in County Cork, Ireland. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Stinging Fly, The Salt Anthology of New Writing 2013, Willesden Herald New Short Stories 7, The Long Story Short, The Irish Times, The Burning Bush 2, Inktears, Southword, Boyne Berries,

Crannóg, Hollybough, on the RTE TEN website, on RTE Radio and in various anthologies. She has won a number of prizes for short fiction, including the Writing Spirit Award for Fiction 2010, The From the Well Short Story Competition 2012, The William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Competition 2012, the Willesden Herald Short Story Competition 2012-2013 and the Merriman Short Story Competition in memory of Maeve Binchy.

Danielle McLaughlin

1.Who are some of the contemporary short story writers you admire? If you had to say, who do you regard as the three best ever short story writers?

I really admire the work of Kevin Barry, Alice Munro, Anne Enright, Éilís Ni Dhuibhne, Mary Costello, William Trevor, Ethel Rohan, Claire Keegan, David Means, Clare Wigfall, Sarah Hall, James Salter, Tessa Hadley, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Tania Hershman, Ron Rash, Lane Ashfeldt,   Jhumpa Lahiri, Yiyun Li - I could go on but the list is getting too long. I’m not going to attempt to name the three best short story writers ever – there are so many writers I haven’t even got around to reading yet.

2. I have read lots of Indian and American short stories in addition to Irish and alcohol plays a much bigger part in the Irish stories. How should an outsider take this and what does it say about Irish culture.   Drinking plays a big part in several of your stories.

 I don’t consciously add alcohol to my stories, it’s not something I’ve ever set out to explore particularly, but when my characters, who are mostly Irish, get together, drinking often happens. Perhaps that in itself says something. The small rural parish where I grew up and where I now live, managed at one point to support six pubs, one of them owned by my family, so I suppose it’s no surprise that something of that makes its way into my work.

3. Declan Kiberd has said the dominant theme of modern Irish literature is that of the weak or missing father? In reading your wonderful story "Midnight at Ali's King Kebab Takeaway" I said:

I pondered if this story is another text book case of this.  The young woman lived in a foster home so her real father and mother were gone from her life, her foster father took advantage of her sexually, Ali's wife takes his kids from him and sets up as a father replacement figure a man we know is not going to work out at all.  We also do wonder why the woman left Ali, was it just she, we think she is Irish as she is described as having porcelain skin,  wanted an Irishman or was Ali too caught up in his food business to me a good father or husband.  So for sure we have one missing father, her real father, an abusive foster father, and Irishman we know will be a bust as a step father and we do have to wonder about Ali.  So how many weak fathers are in this story?  (Danielle, just please talk a bit about the Issue of weak fathers as it relates to your work and your perception of irish lit and life)

It’s funny, isn’t it, how we often don’t notice something in our own stories until someone else points it out? When I look back over ‘Midnight at Ali’s King Kebab Takeaway’, I see that the story does, I think, involve the theme of missing father. We have this rudderless young au pair, far from home, who gets involved with first one older man, then another, and then, as you say, there is Ali separated from his kids. Thinking of some of my other stories, there are a number of instances of missing fathers and there are missing mothers too. Perhaps it is the case that characters who have become untethered have the potential to be more interesting characters. As writers are we drawn more to characters who have been cast loose?  Or maybe it is simply that I wrote the story shortly after I myself had played ‘Mrs Host Mother’ to no fewer than seven young au pairs over the course of two years and they left me with plenty of material. (the story, I hasten to add, is entirely fictional…) In the wider context, is the missing father the dominant theme of modern Irish literature? I don’t know but it’s certainly one of the themes.

4. when did you start writing?

In 2009. That was also the year I became very ill very suddenly with what turned out to be a long term illness and had to stop work, so I guess that had something to do with it. I had attempted to write previously, but it didn’t come to anything. I used to write stories as a child and I remember ‘finishing’ some stories years ago and even sending some out, but I had no understanding of the need to do re-writes, for example, or of the time required to get a story right, so in hindsight, they would have been nowhere near ‘finished’.  I didn’t realise that there was craft to be learned. I used to think that if someone was really a writer, then the writing would more or less happen by itself. In 2009, it was non-fiction I started with, and my first published piece was an article in the Irish Times about going through the seven au pairs in two years. I switched to writing fiction quite quickly, although I still write the occasional feature article. 

5. Please tell us a bit about your none literary work experience

These days I’m a stay-at-home Mammy (I have three kids, aged 10, 8 and 6), although ‘stay-at-home’ is a bit of a misnomer, because most days I’m ferrying them about, and even when they’re at school, I find I often need to get out of the house to write, especially if I’m in the early stages of something. Other jobs over the years have included admin jobs, working in a pub, in a shop, as a lawyer and as a lecturer.

6.   Does living in the city where the world's most prestigious short story festival is held somehow inspire Cork based writers?

I first attended the Cork International Short Story Festival in 2010 and it was magnificent. Short story heaven!  That autumn, I signed up for some writing workshops run by the festival organisers, the Munster Literature Centre, and it was a turning point in my attempts to write. I’ve attended the Festival every year since. Yes, it’s inspiring and the buzz is incredible - I’m on a high for weeks afterwards. I’m already looking forward to this year’s festival  - 18 to22 September 2013.

8.    Please tell us something of your academic background?

I studied law and practiced as a lawyer for many years until I had to stop in 2009 for health reasons. I find writing and law quite similar in many ways: both revolve around words and stories and drama, and both require high levels of creativity. I also studied English and Irish as a night student at UCC.

9. Why have the Irish produced such a disproportional to their population number of great writers?

I don’t know how our numbers compare to other countries but we’ve certainly produced lots. Historically, going back to Brehon law times, the position of writer/poet would have been highly regarded. And, being a small island, we were not engaged in the sort of empire-building that other countries were involved in, so perhaps our energies were directed elsewhere.

10. (This may seem like a silly question but I pose it anyway-do you believe in Fairies?-this quote from Declain Kiberd sort of explains why I am asking this:

" One 1916 veteran recalled, in old age, his youthful conviction that the rebellion would “put an end to the rule of the fairies in Ireland”. In this it was notably unsuccessful: during the 1920s, a young student named Samuel Beckett reported seeing a fairy-man in the New Square of Trinity College Dublin; and two decades later a Galway woman, when asked by an American anthropologist whether she really believed in the “little people”, replied with terse sophistication: “I do not, sir – but they’re there."

Where I live there are lots of fairy forts and as I child I understood that one mustn’t mess with them. Yes, I believe in fairies in that I believe other ‘realities’ may exist that are beyond our knowing or our understanding. And who is to say what spirits or beings may exist in those other places?  I doubt, though, that fairies are sweet, doll-like creatures in pretty dresses  - I like to think they’re a lot more interesting. 

11. Do you think the very large amount of remains from neolithic periods (the highest in the world) in Ireland has shaped in the literature and psyche of the country?

The area where I live has lots of standing stones and there is a souterrain quite close to our house. I tend to take them for granted because I grew up with them and they are part of the landscape. But their existence is bound to impact in some way - there is that sense of something left over from lives gone before, of something that lingers.

12. When you write, do you picture somehow a potential audience or do you just write? As a playwright, do you caste the play at least by types as or before you write it?

Mostly I just write whatever story presents itself, although if something has been commissioned for a particular publication then I will keep readership in mind, eg is it something that needs to be suitable for children? 

I haven’t written any plays.

13. Do you have any rituals or superstitions about your writing, do you have fixed, "writing times"?

The closest I get to a routine is in the mornings when, after I take the children to school, I drive to a café taking a notebook with me and work on a story for a couple of hours. I always have to do the first draft of anything longhand, never straight onto a computer. When I get home, if what I am writing has reached a particular stage, I might transfer it to the computer then.  In the afternoons, the children are home from school but I might get to work on edits of stories that are further along and I try to do a couple of hours in the evenings after the children are in bed.

14. Does the character of the "stage Irishman" live on still in the heavy drinking, violent, on the dole characters one finds in many contemporary Irish novels?  

I don’t recall having encountered the ‘stage Irishman’ much lately. 

15. William Butler Yeats said in "The Literary Movement"-- "“The popular poetry of England celebrates her victories, but the popular poetry of Ireland remembers only defeats and defeated persons”. I see a similarity of this to the heroes of the Philippines. American heroes were all victors, they won wars and achieved independence. The national heroes of the Philippines were almost all ultimately failures, most executed by the Spanish or American rulers. How do you think the fact Yeats is alluding too, assuming you agree, has shaped Irish literature

Maybe it’s an example of ‘write what you know’? I suppose over the course of history the Irish experienced more defeats than victories, so perhaps the literature simply reflects this. I don’t know enough about the particular poetry Yeats was referring to, to comment on whether he was right or not.

16.   What is the best thing about the Cork International Short Story festival?

There are so many things that combine to make the Festival great  - the readings, the workshops, the panel discussions -  it’s difficult to pick just one. Having said that, at the Festival there’s always a very strong sense that everybody –  whether participating writer or audience member – is there because of a shared love of the short story, and the level of interaction between the writers and those who have come along to hear them is something I haven’t experienced anywhere else. I’ve been very fortunate in previous years to get chatting to a number of internationally acclaimed writers.

17. Do you think poets have a social role to play in contemporary Ireland or are they pure artists writing for themselves and a few peers?

I think everyone has a social role to play, poets (or other writers) no more or no less than anyone else. 

18. "To creative artists may have fallen the task of explaining what no historian has fully illuminated – the reason why the English came to regard the Irish as inferior and barbarous, on the one hand, and, on the other, poetic and magical."-is this right? Kiberd, Declan (2009-05-04). Inventing Ireland (p. 646).

I’m afraid I just don’t know, so I’m going to skip this one!

19. Do you think Irish Travellers should be granted the status of a distinct ethnic group and be given special rights to make up for past mistreatment? Are the Travellers to the Irish what the Irish were once to the English? I became interested in this question partially through reading the short stories of Desmond Hogan.

Travellers are an ethnic group and their ethnicity should be recognised. I don’t know about the Irish/English analogy.

20.  Best city for a neophyte writer in Ireland? Dublin, Cork, Galway?

Cork (but then I would say that, wouldn’t I…)

21.   If you have attended literary workshops, tell us a bit about them please-

I’m a big believer in workshops and I go to as many as possible. Many of my stories started out as workshop exercises. The workshops I did in 2010/2011 at the Munster Literature Centre in Cork made a huge difference to my writing and it was out of those workshops that my writing group formed. Five of us continue to meet once a fortnight to critique each other’s work. Some workshops I attended last year were with Éilis Ni Dhuíbhne  at the Cork International Short Story Festival, Tessa Hadley at the West Cork Literary Festival and Nuala Ni Chonchúir at the Waterford Writers Weekend. All really great!

22. Do  you prefer ereading or traditional books?

Traditional books, I don’t have an ereader. 

23. If you were to be given the option of living anywhere besides Ireland where would you live?

New York – I’ve never been, but I imagine it as an extraordinary place and I’d like to try living in a really big city.

24. If you could time travel for 30 days (and be rich and safe) where would you go and why?

I might go forward a couple of hundred years - see how things work out.

26. Flash Fiction-how driven is the popularity of this form by social media like Twitter and its word limits? Do you see twitter as somehow leading to playwrights keeping conversations shorter than in years past?

I’m not on Twitter, but I do like to read and write flash fiction. I can’t imagine Twitter impacting on playwrights in that way, but then again, I’m not on Twitter so I don’t really know.

27. How important in shaping the literature of Ireland is its proximity to the sea?

As a small island, we are in the grip of the sea and it is something that remains uncontrollable, regardless of scientific advances. It also contributes in large part to our isolation. No-one in Ireland is ever very far from the sea so in that sense it is ever-present and this finds its way into our writing. My husband’s family mostly work in the fishing industry in one way or another, so in our house we would be very much  aware of the sea as a force to be reckoned with. There’s a wonderful debut collection called ‘Saltwater’ by Lane Ashfeldt, all of the stories inspired by the sea. It’s a gorgeous collection and I highly recommend it.

28.  When you are outside of Ireland, besides friends and family, what do you miss the most?  What are you glad to be away from?

I’ve never been away long enough to start missing anything. It’s good to get away from the rain for a while.

29. Quick Pick Questions

a. John Synge or Beckett-?  Beckett

b. dogs or cats? Dogs

c.  tablet or lap top? Lap top

d.  favorite meal to eat out-breakfast, lunch or dinner? Dinner

e. RTE or BBC RTE

End

I give my total thanks to Danielle McLaughlin for taking the time to provide us with such interesting and well considered responses to my questions.

Mel u

"Midnight at Ali's King Kebab Takeaway" by Danielle McLaughlin

"Midnight at Ali's King Kebab Takeaway" by Danielle McLaughlin (2012, 4 pages)

March 1 to March 31

Danielle McLaughlin

County Cork

I have decided to extend ISSM3 until April 7 because of all the exciting events that are pending.   You still have plenty of time to participate.  E Mail me if you are interested.

In July of last year I read and posted on a story by Danielle McLuaghlin, "Bewitched" that I really enjoyed reading.  (My post is here.)  Here is some of what I said about her wonderful story:

"Bewitched" is an amazing story about a moment in which a bookish socially awkward teenage girl takes a step toward real maturity and wisdom, a step that decades do not take most people.  "Bewitched" is structurally the perfect short story."

  Ethel Rohan did a beautiful post during ISSM2 last year on another story by Danielle McLaughlin,  "All About Alice".  (You can read it here.)  Here is part of what Rohan said about this story:

"While my first read of this story hung onto the sheer joy of tale and suspense, and was fueled by the need to get to the conclusion, my subsequent reads of  “All About Alice” focused on trying to figure out just how McLaughlin so beautifully crafted and rendered this moving and memorable story. The voice, tone, and pacing in “All About Alice” seem perfect. There isn’t a beat wasted or missing. The three big ‘Ds’ of details, descriptions, and dialogue are telling and serve to both reveal character and progress plot."

"Midnight at Ali's King Kebab Takeaway" is another very well done perfectly plot story with lots of details to make the story very real for us. In fact this story set in a sausage and chip shop by the ocean was so real it made me grave a nice hot sausage on a roll with lots of piping hot chips with mustard and ketchup to dip them in.

The story begins at 1000 am in the morning. It is raining and he has only one customer this morning, an eight- teen year old woman. It is too early for his normal take out customers to be there anyway. Ali used to be married to an Irish woman, he had two dark eyed sons with her. One day she left him for a curly headed Irishman. I will quote a bit from these magnificent lines that compress much and project a grim future for the wife that left him:

"Ali’s wife left him last summer. Bolted, Frank, one of his regulars, said. She left him for a mechanic from Mullingar that she met during the Rally of the Lakes in Killarney. She came back a week later for her jewellery and their two dark-eyed little boys. The mechanic had waited outside in his Honda Civic, two wheels straddling the pavement. He had one arm out the window, the other thrumming fingers on the steering wheel. He stared in at Ali, ugly music pulsing from the dashboard, then raised one finger in a word-less war-cry. A curly-headed little runt, Frank had called him. Ali sees the boys every second Sunday in a fast-food restaurant in Athlone where the chips are thin and powdery."

The girl has her own tale of abandonment.   We do not know her full life history.  We know she was in a foster home for a while until the wife of the family caught her husband in bed with her husband.  We are not real sure how this happened but we know it was nasty and exploitative.  Of course the wife went nuts when she caught them.     The man takes her to the bus station and gives her ten pounds and tells her not to worry his wife will get over being mad as if that were all she had to worry about.

Ali is only human, he eyes the woman.  She notices the help wanted sign and she asks him if her prefers a girl or a boy.  Up until now he had wanted a boy he could talk sports and such with but he tells her a girl.  She asks him if a room in included and he thinks of the room his sons no longer use and he says yes there is a room.  Nothing happens but there is hope for two people who before seemed to have endless loneliness staring them in the face.

There are lots of very telling details in this story but as you can read it online here I will not say anymore. 

As I read the chapter I recalled a question I have asked everyone who has so far done a Q and A Session:

Declan Kiberd has said the dominant theme of modern Irish literature is that of the weak or missing father? Do you think he is right and how does this, if it does, reveal itself in your work. 

I pondered if this story is another text book case of this.  The young woman lived in a foster home so her real father and mother were gone from her life, her foster father took advantage of her sexually, Ali's wife takes his kids from him and sets up as a father replacement figure a man we know is not going to work out at all.  We also do wonder why the woman left Ali, was it just she, we think she is Irish as she is described as having porcelain skin,  wanted an Irishman or was Ali too caught up in his food business to me a good father or husband.  So for sure we have one missing father, her real father, an abusive foster father, and Irishman we know will be a bust as a step father and we do have to wonder about Ali.  It is also a story about being a stranger in a strange land, about Ireland seen through eyes of Ali.  We have no idea how he got there and I think the story  is better that way.

Both people start what may be a new life with their pasts hanging heavy over them.  For sure I wished them well.  I really enjoyed reading this story.

You can read the story  here

Author Bio

Danielle McLaughlin lives in County Cork. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Stinging Fly, Boyne Berries, Crannóg, The RTE TEN website, Inktears, and in various anthologies including The Bone Woman and other short stories, recently published by Cork County Library and Arts Service, the Fish Anthology 2012 and the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology 2012. Another of her stories was shortlisted for the Francis Mac Manus Competition 2012 and will be broadcast on RTE Radio 1 in July. She won the Writing Spirit Award for Fiction 2010, a WOW!2 Award for Fiction in 2011, the From the Well Short Story Competition 2012, and the William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Competition 2012.


She has kindly agree to complete a question and answer session for ISSM3 so please look for that soon.

I look forward to reading more of her work over the coming years. 

Mel u