A Rose in the Heart of New York - Edna O'Brien
March is Irish Short Story Month at The Reading Life. I have read a some O'Brien novels and enjoyed them. A copy of A Fanatic Heart, her selected stories has sat on my shelves for a few years. Time to take it down. This story is highlighted on the back cover so I thought I'd start by reading it.
I was primed to enjoy this story but still surprised by its power and intensity. It is emotionally devastating, a symphony composed of the perfectly observed minutae of pain and emptiness. It is the story of a daughter and her mother, of love, hatred, loneliness, frustration, sex, despair, desire, injustice, loss and death. It is a story of a harder Ireland, an often cruel country. Looking back, I find it hard to believe that it is only thirty pages long.
