Stories of shame and repression from neglected Irish writer Maeve Brennan in 'The Springs of Affection'

AN IRISH woman and a stylish inhabitant of New York whose elegant prose appeared regularly in the New Yorker and who published two collections of stories and a collection of essays during her life-time, Maeve Brennan (1917-1993) had to quit writing after a breakdown in the 1970s. 

She died, unknown. This collection of her Dublin-based stories was first published in 1997.

It’s a mixture of memoir and a study of two unhappy marriages. The memoir pieces read like anecdotes, often amusing.