Dark Lies the Island : Stories (Hardcover)

from CarleyShea

I have never been a huge fan of short stories, but I was excited to give this book a try. It opened very strong. I loved the writing of "Across the Rooftops." It was a brief and vague peek into the life of an unnamed character. The other stand out stories for me were "The Mainland Campaign," "Dar...

from mhanlon

First, the good stuff, because Kevin Barry is full of good stuff. He's at his best when his stories veer that little bit off the road into the bizarre and the slightly unexpected. He's able to capture off-the-wall, perhaps manic voices with believability and aplomb. Which is what he does so well ...

from pgmcc

This is a thirteen story collection from Kevin Barry whose previous published works include his Rooney Award winning collection, "There Are Little Kingdoms", and his excellent novel, "The City of Bohane". I have read and reviewed both of these previous publications and they drove me to state that...

from Hagelstein

There are any number of addictions in these stories. Drink, drugs, pain, love - they're all represented, as are the people that can't do without them. The disaster of a flooded inn gives a depressed poet the will to write again. Men in several of the stories mourn the loss of their women - none o...

from freelancer_frank

This is a book about the delights and peculiarities of isolation. All the stories focus on a central character that is somehow set apart from things - 'things' in this case being largely Irish. Barry has a talent for fusing location, speech patterns and phrasing to bring his various points home. ...