Fishing the Sloe-Black River: Stories - Softcover

McCann, Colum

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805041079 ISBN 13: 9780805041071

Publisher: Holt Paperbacks, 1997

Synopsis

An anthology of twelve short stories about Irish misfits by the author of Dancer includes the tale of the anorexic nun who dies in a Long Island hospital and the talkative beautician who works with corpses, in a collection that explores the themes of exile, loss, love, and displacement. Reprint.

About this title

Review:

In Songdogs, his first novel, Colum McCann, who divides his time between Ireland and America, explores the tensions created by movement between such different worlds. The thematic thread in this collection of short stories is much the same--the longing to escape from, and the pull toward, a fixed and central point. Sometimes the theme is explored through travel: a survivor of Hiroshima emigrates to western Ireland, but always feels the blast of that defining moment; a young Irishwoman moves frenetically through America in search of tranquillity. Sometimes the motion is within the mind, as it is for the paralyzed cyclist who discards his bike after realizing that "the only thing it could be ridden with was a perfect cadence of the imagination."

About the Author:

Colum McCann is the author of  books including This Side of Brightness, Zoli, Songdogs and Let the Great World Spin. He has received the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, a Pushcart Prize, and was named the first winner of the Grace Kelly Memorial Foundation Award and the Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award. He lives in New York City.

About this edition

• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0805041079
• ISBN 13: 9780805041071
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 208