In Sunshine or in Shadow: Stories by Irish Women [Paperback]

Maeve Binchy (Author), Mary Maher (Author), Kate Cruise O'Brien (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 9, 1999

From Dublin's suburbs to the streets of New York, women's hopes and dreams come alive in a unique collection of stories that mines Ireland's extraordinary storytelling tradition.

In Maeve Binchy's "Taximen Are Invisible" a cabbie becomes silent party to the lives of a couple who seem to have it all--until he sees the truth, and counts his own heretofore unrecognized blessings. The perfect marriage in Mary Gordon's "Bishop's House" appears to be the province of Helen and Richard, longtime friends of divorcée Lavinia--until Lavinia discovers the true nature of their bond with each other--and with her.  Mary Maher pays tribute to a simple wife in "Lucy's Story" as Lucy shares her deepest secrets with a psychologist friend--and shows the steel beneath the fluff.

In these and sixteen other superb stories, Ireland's finest writers create vivid portraits of extraordinary women--gallant, sometimes foolish, often wise--who have found the courage to endure loss of innocence and love betrayed...and survive.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1995, Irish voters passed?by the narrowest margin in the country's history?a constitutional amendment lifting Ireland's ban on divorce. That pivotal moment spurred Maher and O'Brien to solicit original stories addressing the themes of love and marriage from 19 women writers with family or personal roots in Ireland. Contributors include Maeve Binchy (whose "Taximen Are Invisible" is a corrosive portrait of a philandering man and the helpless women he deceives), Mary Gordon, Mary Morrissy and Jennifer Johnston, plus such writers as Mary Maher, Ita Daly and Marian Keyes, who are less well-known here. There is little of the sunshine in the title to be found in these grim though heartfelt tales of women whose lives generally grow worse when marriages end. Set in rural and urban Ireland as well as New York City and London (the exception is "Polygamy" by Gaye Shortland, in which a woman recalls her confusion with social mores in Africa, where men customarily have more than one wife), these works speak volumes about stresses and infidelities solidified by centuries of social conditioning. The best stories eloquently describe the strength that sustains some women through bad relationships or allows them to escape. Most narratives paint gritty pictures of the frustration and despair that may eventually overwhelm unhappy wives. Mary Gordon's "Bishop's House," the most morally complex of the lot, has as protagonist a woman who divorces out of boredom and becomes devalued in her own eyes. On the whole, the tales seem to support the editors' suggestion that divorce may not be worth the pain and damage it can cause the women who choose it. BOMC alternate. (Mar.) FYI: Royalties are being donated to the Marriage and Relationship Counseling Service in Dublin.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

These stories were contributed by 17 leading Gaelic women writers, including Maeve Binchy, Mary Gordon, and Patricia Scanlan.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Delta (February 9, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385333358
• ISBN-13: 978-0385333351
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #170,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Now this is writing!, March 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: In Sunshine Or In Shadow (Hardcover)

All of the stories in this book were easy to latch on to, some were more enjoyable than others and I wished they didn't end so fast. The Orphan, by Mary Dorcey, is without a doubt the most disturbing thing that I have ever read, and I wept while reading it. Is it possible that such evil could exist? Is it possible that this story is based on fact? This book made me definitely want to read more by these authors, most of whome were unfamiliar to me (with the exception of Maeve Binchy and Mary Gordon). However, I don't think their books are too available in the US. As I am planning a trip to Ireland this summer, I will surely look for them. I would definitely recommend this book.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too much victimhood, but isolated oases of brilliance!, October 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: In Sunshine or in Shadow: Stories by Irish Women (Paperback)

If love, as the cover claims, is the common thread in these nineteen stories, then love must be a strange fiction in the Irish sensibility. Most of the stories reek of disappointed, disaffected females: no harm in that either, now that I think of it. But hang on a minute. Why are some of the stories so badly written? Is there a suggestion that many of these pieces, because they were commissioned (as the introduction suggests), have suffered from being 'forced' out onto the page? That's how it strikes me. It was difficult to see any logical connection between the stories and the introduction of divorce in Ireland. A couple of the works really succeed, among them Ita Daly's genuinely-sustained, atmospheric 'Do the Decent Thing'. In this story, Rosa observes her stifling, oppressive family, and attempts to forge a sense of reconcilation within herself in relation to the father who has disappointed her. The thing about this story is that this family is a universally oppressed one, not peculiar to the Irish, nor proclaiming its Irishness as if this was a special 'condition' or 'disease'. Mary Morrissey's 'Clods' hits the mark with its splendid laying bare of death, a rural funeral, and the narrator's turmoil. Moreover, her dialogue and character-interaction is superb. And Mary O'Donnell's multi-layered story 'Passover' certainly taps into the global voice: Rosanna, freshly delivered from childbirth in Dublin, reflects on the experience both before and after. But this is no softly-contoured look at maternity. It is a work which drives hard in its use of language to lay bare the essential epiphany which has been the narrator's experience. The story is about pain and violence, not just in childbirth, but in war too, which the author deftly links to wars everywhere, including Vietnam. Connections are made constantly - some of them amusing - between America and Ireland, between pain and beauty, between birth and death. Otherwise, some of the stories are lighter and perhaps more predictable. The title could be re-thought if this book were to be reprinted. As it stands, it's corny, sort of softly-softly womany-sounding!