Book review: Humour and author’s voice stand out in collection

The standout qualities of de Celia de Fréine’s collection are voice and humour

Celia de Fréine is a seasoned poet and playwright who writes across genres in Irish and English.

• Even Still 
• Celia de Fréine 
• Arlen House, €15

Although rarely out of fashion, the Irish short story has experienced something of a renaissance in the last decade, aided in part by an abundance of literary journals and small presses nurturing the form. 

One such outfit is Arlen House, the feminist publisher celebrating 50 years since its founding by Cork woman Catherine Rose, now run by Alan Hayes.

This radical small publisher remains as enthusiastic as ever in championing the many writers on its varied list. 

A recent offering is Even Still, the debut story collection from Celia de Fréine, a seasoned and award-winning poet and playwright, born in Newtownards and raised in Dublin. 

Elsewhere, de Fréine writes across genres in Irish and English, and the story My Sister Safija is a translation of her original, Mo Dheirfiúr Maja .

The standout qualities of de Fréine’s collection are voice and humour. 

From a child navigating the perils of her city streets to an amateur actress finding relief from the daily grind, her characters’ interior monologues always feel authentic. 

She resists a nostalgic view of 20th century Ireland in favour of spotlighting its difficulties and dangers for women and girls, with a healthy dose of comedy alongside everyday horrors.

The opening three stories are told from the point of view of the quick-witted Veronica, following her from a working-class Dublin childhood into young womanhood and beyond. 

The second offering, The Story of Elizabeth, was shortlisted for the An Post Irish Short Story of the Year Award, and all three of Veronica’s stories are peppered with delicate foreshadowing alongside moments of profundity — her mother is reluctant to part with old and broken items because: “They all belong to a story she’s afraid she’ll forget if they’re thrown out.”

It’s refreshing to read a collection with so many genuinely funny lines. 

De Fréine has an impressive ability to mix drama and humour that is reminiscent of major playwrights such as Friel. 

As with Friel, I got the impression that the short story is perhaps not de Fréine’s most natural form. 

A tendency towards summarisation and sweeping, urgent plots can at times feel more suited to stage or screen.

Tension is expertly built only to be conveniently dispelled, a reliance on the first person can make the similarly aged protagonists feel interchangeable. 

De Fréine’s prose style works fittingly in other instances, such as in the delightfully meta The Short of It, where an Irish teacher is taking an evening writing class and mining her life for material, or in the dark fairytale-like La Cantatrice Muette , in which a butcher in a passionless marriage loses half a finger and finds a renewed lust for life.

Yet, de Fréine shines most brightly in this mode when she gives her ideas room to breathe and roots her spiky characters in present tense action.

In Vive la Révolution, one of the strongest stories in the collection, class differences among a group of students in 1969 are subtly rendered through the energy of a house party, perennial in its relevance: “After a few minutes shifting our feet on the same carpet stain, he edges me towards the bedroom.”

This story would sit easily in any of Ireland’s top literary journals and showcases de Fréine’s potential in a form that she is perhaps still finding her own feet in. 

An altered arrangement and heavier editorial intervention may have benefited Even Still, but there is no denying de Fréine’s unique talent and knack for a comical flourish. 

As her writer in The Short of It remarks: “Shit happens to everyone, but it’s your own individual way of writing about that shit that makes it interesting.”