Life lived on the edge

Apparation & Late Fictions: A novella and short stories

The difference is that for the minister at the centre of Apparition desire is life-enhancing and even life-deciding.

For Aisling Black of Matinee however, trapped in the emotional limbo of widowhood and driven by a gale of sudden lust, desire becomes addictive and threatening. As writer, teacher and relict of a famous poet to whom she had been devoted but whose loss has released her to fashion a life of her own, Aisling is well-reared, well-off and well-educated but still succumbs to small temptations, as when flying home from an academic engagement: “… the idea that she travelled for free was more appealing than the idea that she travelled in style.”