Galway writer launches 'unsettling' collection of short stories
‘The Other Poet Drives a Black Mercedes’, the latest short story collection from Galway based author Órfhlaith Foyle, will be launched this Saturday, September 12, in the city's Town Hall Theatre.
Órfhlaith travels through time and embraces many themes in this book, which follows her 2022 collection, ‘Three Houses in Rome’, also published by Conamara-based Doire Press.
A young teacher of English witnesses the results of a gangland murder in London's East End, and later on, is visited by a fisherwoman, a medieval monk and a Norman knight. An artist murdered in Auschwitz now lives a refugee life in Athlone. A family wake descends into a matter-of-fact burning of the dead. A poet journeys into the other world of her imagination. A medieval scribe writes an account of her pilgrimage to St Patrick’s Purgatory to her murdered father, Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Emily Brontë struggles to write her second novel, battling with her siblings’ disapproval of her first work, ‘Wuthering Heights’.
Acclaimed short story writer, June Caldwell has praised the collection as “fantastic”, describing the stories as “dark, brooding, elemental, full of 'unstable gladness' and more than a little unsettling”.
Órfhlaith, who was born in Africa and spent most of her youth there, has lived in Galway since the 1990s and is based in Knocknacarra. She has previously published a poetry collection and three short story collections, including 'Three Houses in Rome'. She also wrote and directed the radio dramas 'May’s End' and 'How I Murdered Lucrezia', adapted from her short stories.
‘The Other Poet Drives a Black Mercedes’ will be launched by fellow author Aideen Henry at 12.30pm this Saturday. It’s available in local bookshops and from www.doirepress.com.