The Rose Garden: Short Stories [Hardcover]

Maeve Brennan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2000

Maeve Brennans collection The Springs of Affection was one of the best reviewed books of 1997. A volume of linked tales of the authors native Dublin, it enlarged the reputation of a too-often overlooked writer, a Flaubertian perfectionist revered by her New Yorker colleagues as one of the finest stylists the magazine ever produced.Now, with The Rose Garden , the remainder of her fictionmuch of it previously uncollectedis at last restored to print, and Maeve Brennan stands revealed as one of the centurys great short-story writers.In five of these twenty stories, we return to Brennans Dublin, which like Joyces is a place of paralyzed souls, unexpressed love, and scaldingly wicked humor. Another group of storiesa satirical study of Herberts Retreat, a snug and smug community just up the Hudson River from New Yorkconcerns the Irish in America, the hired help of a set of money-conscious, social-climbing suburbanites. Still others take us into the cheap hotels and inexpensive restaurants of Times Square and Greenwich Village, and into the mind of Bluebell, an aging city doga female black Lab, to be exactwho lives on her memories of the country and the seashore. Together they form a collection that, as The New York Times Book Review said of The Springs of Affection , is wide-ranging, savage, and poignant, and that brings Brennan back to the table of modern fiction, where her place has been empty for too long.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Addictive tales from a rediscovered mid-century master. Or maybe the more appropriate word would be mistress, since The Rose Garden is crammed to the rafters with maids and their mistresses. Maeve Brennan, a longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, shows herself thoroughly in control of her fictive house in this posthumous reissue of stories from the 1950s through the '70s. Each is a witty, mean little miracle of lost chances and bruised egos. The first five stories are set in the town of Herbert's Retreat, an arty, expensive enclave on the Hudson, based on Sneden's Landing where Brennan lived for several years with her husband, New Yorker managing editor St. Clair McKelway. The Herbert's Retreat stories are linked entertainments, compulsively readable, and worthy of the adoration inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Basil and Josephine" stories. Like Fitzgerald, Brennan limns shattering loss and hilariously sends up middle-class pretentions--sometimes within the space of the same sentence. A pompous New York critic imposes his finicky will on the good wives of the community; a favorite son returns a broken man and finds that only the maids will dance with him; a bum passing through leaves his rather stinky mark.

Every character, above stairs and below, lives for the delight of recounting the disasters and drunks of the night before. The afternoon before the servants' annual dance, "jaded with talking about the dance, anxious now only to get on with it, willing even to have it past, so that they could start enjoying the discussion of it, most of the maids at Herbert's Retreat lay down on their beds for an unaccustomed ceremonial nap before getting dressed for the evening." The closed community and its inhabitants' transparent attempts to dominate each other recall E.F. Benson's utterly delightful Lucia series.

The Rose Garden is rounded out with several of Brennan's acclaimed stories of bereft Dublin life, a couple of experimental, stream-of-consciousness pieces, and, of all things, a handful of dog stories. Her forays into the interior life of her Labrador, Bluebell, might read as twee indulgences, except they're so rife with breathtaking, careful observation:

That was an unearthly morning--one mislaid at the beginning of the world and recovered in East Hampton under a high and massive sky of Mediterranean blue.... The wind was so new that it blew cold, in its first rush across the world, but the air was soft. The pheasant's head and body were almost buried in the powdery sand, but he had fallen with his wings wide open, and one of them slanted up to make a wedge of color in the air.

Such quiet, perfect sentences stud Maeve Brennan's stories. This is a book full of intelligent diversions, a book that makes a good, lasting sound. --Claire Dederer

From Publishers Weekly

A New Yorker writer from 1949 to 1981, the late Brennan also wrote many short stories, some published in 1997's The Springs of Affection. Six of the 20 stories in this volume are collected for the first time. Set in and around New York and Dublin, Brennan's carefully crafted scenes are reminiscent of James Joyce's Dubliners for their subtle epiphanies of anesthetized life. "The Bride" is typical, concerning Margaret, a vulnerable Irish immigrant maid who is trapped by a bullying plumber into a loveless marriage. The stories set in Herbert's Retreat fictionalize Snedens Landing on the Hudson River, where Brennan and her second husband, New Yorker managing editor St. Clair McKelway. lived. Four of them feature Charles Runyon, noted man of letters and theater critic (nicknamed "Mr. God"). In "The View from the Kitchen," the maids critique the lady of the house, Leona Harkey, and her fascination with "Mr. God." Another narrative is an ironic sketch of good taste becoming absurd, centered on Runyon's pink-and-white striped shirt and Leona's adoring copy. In "The Stone Hot-Water Bottle," a social absurdity finally pushes Leona into a nuanced but distinct rebellion against her idol. The title tale is set in Dublin, where a 39-year-old shopkeeper with two young children watches her husband slowly die, her memory searching for meaning in the rose garden of a local convent. Unable to translate her exploration into terms others can understand, she is perceived as being wretchedly selfish. Although Brennan's approach includes humor and social commentary, these stories are too dark to be called comedies of manners. Rather her focus centers on the tragedy produced when an individual's need for expression is countered and restricted by the need for societal acceptance. Readers moved by this veteran writer's storytelling skill will welcome the reemergence of the late Brennan's perspectives. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 307 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint; 1st edition (February 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582430500
• ISBN-13: 978-1582430508
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,415,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars And a beautiful garden it is, February 2, 2000

By 

G. Collins (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Rose Garden: Short Stories (Hardcover)

I'd never heard of Maeve Brennan before I picked up this book, and I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to find her. This was a wonderful surprise, filled with astute observations, sly humor, and delightful prose. The stories in this collection bring to mind Raymond Carver and J.D. Salinger in their recording of the subtle moments in life, when nothing seems to outwardly happen but profound shifts in power and status occur behind the visages of the complacent and bemused characters she so brilliantly sketches. If you're looking for a steady stream of action, you'd do better elsewhere, but if you prefer incisive characterizations and a more gentle touch, please give this a try. Make no mistake, though, in believing her to be some imitator. Stories like "A Snowy Night on West Forty-ninth Street" and "The Door on West Tenth Street" showcase a writer with her own distinct and wonderful voice, someone who probably deserves more attention than she's received thus far. Once I finished these stories I immediately bought her other collections, eager to read more.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal, June 4, 2001

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taking a rest - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Rose Garden: Short Stories (Hardcover)

Ms. Maeve Brennan wrote for and about, "The New Yorker", magazine for over four decades. The New Yorker is many things including a publication known for excellence. To have been a part of such an institution for so long is enough to place this woman in a very small group if not alone for her tenure there. "The Rose Garden", is one of two books that collect short stories Ms. Brennan created, and they are without exception excellent.

Of the twenty stories there are a few that are stand-alone tales. The book opens and then closes with a series of stories that share place and characters but also could stand by themselves as well. The first grouping is a brilliant and savage attack on a small community north of Manhattan, which is based upon a community the writer, lived in. She has a rapier wit and she uses it to dismember the people and their pretensions that occupy this community. She does it with such style that some of the targets would probably lack the insight to see just how badly she savaged them and their affected lifestyle. There are two stories that on their own are worth owning the book, one is, "The Servant's Dance", and the other begins with, "The Holy Terror". Writing such as this is a rare event.

The cover of the book is a picture of the writer from 1949. If those Irish Eyes of hers ever focused on a person and identified them as a target, it would be akin to being told Mike Wallace of 60 minutes was waiting to speak with you.

A wonderful writer and a woman that must have been a daunting presence to be in the midst of. Fantastic reading!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A female Cheever, March 7, 2005

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Catherine S. Vodrey (East Liverpool, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Rose Garden: Short Stories (Scarcrow) (Paperback)

Maeve Brennan wrote for THE NEW YORKER for many years, as did John Cheever, but that is only one thing they had in common. The other is their talent for observing--with only a little smidgen of a judgmental attitude--the foibles and hobbies of the wealthy and the social climbers of their particular world (specifically, Manhattan in the 1930s through the 1950s).

In THE ROSE GARDEN, Brennan--an abundantly talented Irish native who spent many years living and writing in New York--examines most particularly the social comings and goings of the residents of a neighborhood closely modeled on Sneden's Landing, the clubby, cloistered, wealthy weekend getaway for many Manhattanites. Brennan repeats characters freely from story to story, which lends the book a richness it might not otherwise have, and she skewers with extraordinary precision and delicacy the foolishness her characters indulge in--knowingly sometimes, but mostly in complete oblivion to their idiocies.

Special treats in THE ROSE GARDEN include "The Divine Fireplace" (which features possibly the funniest conversation I've ever read between a wife and a woman she sees as a threat to her marriage); "The Stone Hot Water Bottle" and "The Servants' Dance," which brings into sharp focus the "Upstairs, Downstairs" observations at which she excels. These stories are deliciously readable--and re-readable.