"One of the masters of the short story".--NEWSWEEK. "In almost all the stories in this excellently balanced collection O'Connor's people explode from the page. The nice are here and the nasty: the gentle, the generous, the mean, the absurd, those rich in dignity, those without a shred of it. . . . Without adornment, he simply tells the truth".--WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD.
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"One of the masters of the short story." -- Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek
"In his 63 years, Frank O'Connor produced an impressive amount of work...but it's his short stories that guarantee his immortality. They are encapsulated universes. While most modern stories focus on a single moment, Frank O'Connor's generally sum up the patterns of whole lives ....Each [story] is, in its own way, shattering." -- Anne Tyler, Chicago Sunday Times
"Walter Benjamin says in his essay on Leskov that people think of a storyteller as someone who has come from afar. O'Connor's best stories put the same thought into our heads; how far, in some imaginative sense, he has to travel to achieve such wisdom and to accomplish it with such Flair." -- Denis Donoghue, New York Times Book Review
"In almost all the stories in this excellently balanced collection O'Connor's people explode from the page. The nice are here and the nasty: the gentle, the generous, the mean, the absurd, those rich in dignity, those without a shred of it....Without adornment, he simply tells the truth." -- William Trevor, Washington Post Book World
"The life work of an artist whose stature is comparable to that of W.B. Yeats and James Joyce, an artist who, in the words of Yeats himself, did for Ireland what Chekhov did for Russia." -- Robert Leiter, Philadelphia Inquirer
"In his 63 years, Frank O'Connor produced an impressive amount of work...but it's his short stories that guarantee his immortality. They are encapsulated universes. While most modern stories focus on a single moment, Frank O'Connor's generally sum up the patterns of whole lives ....Each [story] is, in its own way, shattering." -- Anne Tyler, Chicago Sunday Times
"Walter Benjamin says in his essay on Leskov that people think of a storyteller as someone who has come from afar. O'Connor's best stories put the same thought into our heads; how far, in some imaginative sense, he has to travel to achieve such wisdom and to accomplish it with such Flair." -- Denis Donoghue, New York Times Book Review
"In almost all the stories in this excellently balanced collection O'Connor's people explode from the page. The nice are here and the nasty: the gentle, the generous, the mean, the absurd, those rich in dignity, those without a shred of it....Without adornment, he simply tells the truth." -- William Trevor, Washington Post Book World
"The life work of an artist whose stature is comparable to that of W.B. Yeats and James Joyce, an artist who, in the words of Yeats himself, did for Ireland what Chekhov did for Russia." -- Robert Leiter, Philadelphia Inquirer
From the Back Cover
"One of the masters of the short story." -- Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek
"In his 63 years, Frank O'Connor produced an impressive amount of work...but it's his short stories that guarantee his immortality. They are encapsulated universes. While most modern stories focus on a single moment, Frank O'Connor's generally sum up the patterns of whole lives ....Each [story] is, in its own way, shattering." -- Anne Tyler, Chicago Sunday Times
"Walter Benjamin says in his essay on Leskov that people think of a storyteller as someone who has come from afar. O'Connor's best stories put the same thought into our heads; how far, in some imaginative sense, he has to travel to achieve such wisdom and to accomplish it with such Flair." -- Denis Donoghue, New York Times Book Review
"In almost all the stories in this excellently balanced collection O'Connor's people explode from the page. The nice are here and the nasty: the gentle, the generous, the mean, the absurd, those rich in dignity, those without a shred of it....Without adornment, he simply tells the truth." -- William Trevor, Washington Post Book World
"The life work of an artist whose stature is comparable to that of W.B. Yeats and James Joyce, an artist who, in the words of Yeats himself, did for Ireland what Chekhov did for Russia." -- Robert Leiter, Philadelphia Inquirer
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ireland's Premier Short Story Teller,
By A Customer
This review is from: Collected Stories (Paperback)
The tradition of the Irish story teller has been reborn in this century in her marvelous short story writers. None was finer than Corkman, Frank O'Connor. All of O'Connor's classic stories are here. O'Connor truly captures Irish life in the early part of this century. The wit and humor that are legendary among Corkmen is present throughout this book. This is one of my favorite books ever. I have given it as a gift too many times to count. Every person that I gave it to came back raving about it!
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best short-story teller of his generation,
By A Customer
This review is from: Collected Stories (Paperback)
Frank O'Connor is likely our time's and our language's best at telling the short story. Don't miss "First Confession" or "The Drunkard."You don't have to be Irish to recognize the pattern and rhythm of life and speech in his stories. They capture a place and time perfectly, but yet transcend the confinements of culture or period.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a great storyteller,
By L. Stearns Newburg "LSN" (CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Collected Stories (Paperback)
Generally, when it comes to literature, I'm fairly hard to please. That being said, I love this book without reservation. I've recommended it to and foisted it on friends for years now. Many of them react much the way I do: there isn't anyone else like Frank O'Connor.
The stories are lyrical, sharply and humorously observed, and told with elegance in an easy but precise idiomatic diction. O'Connor always gave his work the test of being read aloud, and this care for the sound and cadence of his prose shows on every page. Then, there is O'Connor's feeling for people. Reading the stories, one gets the impression that he was an intelligent but fundamentally kindly, generous man. Even when a character in the stories does something that seems objectionable, O'Connor never loses sight of that character's humanity. There is no absence of modernist irony, and the irony can sting (as in "The Mad Lomasneys"), but it is never cruel. O'Connor's stories take place in Ireland, but they are not circumscribed by a desire to depict Irish regional color or romantic notions about the place. He wrote what he knew and understood, and what he understood was the people he grew up with. If that makes him a regionalist, then so were Faulkner and John Millington Synge. In his own subtle way, O'Connor was a realist, and ultimately, these stories are universal: they touch places in the psyche and the human heart that are common to us all. Any selection of one's "favorite" stories will be personal. To an interested reader, I would say, "Read them all." To friends who ask, I add that they should start with "Guests of the Nation" and "First Confession." These aren't his "best" stories, but I've always liked them both, they are typical of his best, and one must start somewhere. When I've given 5 stars to a book, I've often had to argue with myself as to whether it deserved it. Not for this one.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
AT DUSK the big Englishman Belcher would shift his long legs out of the ashes and ask, "Well, chums, what about it?" and Noble or me would say, "As you please, chum" (for we had picked up some of their curious expressions), and the little Englishman 'Awkins would light the lamp and produce the cards. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
old parish priest, worried air, mournful smile Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Father Fogarty, Brother Michael, Brother Arnold, Father Michael, Mickie Joe, Father Whelan, Father Devine, Father Hamilton, Grand Vizier, Jeremiah Donovan, Father Ring, Father Crowley, Main Street, Michael John, God Almighty, Sunday's Well, Grand Mufti, Aunt Nance, County Council, Fair Hill, Father Finnegan, Father Jackson, Almighty God, Father Cassidy, Father Hanafey New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
AT DUSK the big Englishman Belcher would shift his long legs out of the ashes and ask, "Well, chums, what about it?" and Noble or me would say, "As you please, chum" (for we had picked up some of their curious expressions), and the little Englishman 'Awkins would light the lamp and produce the cards. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
old parish priest, worried air, mournful smile Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Father Fogarty, Brother Michael, Brother Arnold, Father Michael, Mickie Joe, Father Whelan, Father Devine, Father Hamilton, Grand Vizier, Jeremiah Donovan, Father Ring, Father Crowley, Main Street, Michael John, God Almighty, Sunday's Well, Grand Mufti, Aunt Nance, County Council, Fair Hill, Father Finnegan, Father Jackson, Almighty God, Father Cassidy, Father Hanafey New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 4
books:
88
books
cite this book:
See all 88 books citing this book
- The Red and the Black by Marie De Stendhal in Front Matter
- Irish Melodies by Thomas Moore on page 687
- Old Guard by Grace Livingston Hill on page 686
- The Red and the Black (Penguin Classics) by Stendhal in Front Matter
- William Humphrey, Destroyer of Myths (Texas Writers Series) by Bert Almon on 4 pages
- Wakeful Anguish: A Literary Biography of William Humphrey (Southern Literary Studies) by Ashby Bland Crowder in Front Matter, page 337, and Back Matter
- The King's English, Adventures of an Independent Bookseller by Betsy Burton in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Katherine Anne Porter: A Sense of the Times (Minds of the New South) by Janis P. Stout in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- Aging and Gender in Literature: Studies in Creativity (Feminist Issues) by Anne M. Wyatt-Brown in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 88 books citing this book
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