A memory, and other stories

Literature & Fiction

LAVIN, Mary

Short Stories & Anthologies

Constable

The Stories of Mary Lavin (Fiction - General)

Literary

Constable and Company Ltd.

Stories of Irish families deal with grief, jealousy, friendship, kindness, envy, loneliness, pride, and happiness

Lavin: Selected Stories

Penguin??Books

Mary O'Grady an Irish peasant woman, discovers that motherhood brings her as many sorrows as joys

Mary O'Grady (Virago Modern Classics)

This absorbing family saga, first published in 1945, reveals the poignancies of an Irish Catholic upbringing, and is a testimony to Mary Lavin's considerable power as a storyteller. Theodore Coniffe, austere property owner in Castlerampart, looks forward to the birth of an heir when his third and youngest daughter, Lily, marries. A son is born, but the father, Cornelius Galloway, is a spendthrift who dies young, leaving the child to the care of Lily and her sisters, Theresa and Sara. Their love for Gabriel is limited by religious propriety and his youth is both protected and restrained. At the age of twenty-one Gabriel runs away to Dublin with Onny, a kitchen maid. Here they tumble into bohemian life. But Gabriel is ill-suited to this makeshift freedom and finds the values of Clewe Street impossible to evade.

House in Clewe Street

On an island teeming with masters of the short story, Mary Lavin's distinct voice and devoted following set her apart. Before her death in 1996, this Irish writer had received many honors and prizes not only for her luminous short stories but also for several highly regarded novels. William Trevor praised Lavin's ability to "make moments timeless, to illuminate people and places, words and things, by touching them with the magic of the rarely-gifted storyteller." In a Cafe makes available for the first time in the United States a collection of her most beloved pieces as compiled by her daughter. In masterworks such as the title story, an unsettling portrayal of widowhood, and "The Will," which Lavin considered the finest expression of her art, we recognize the justice in Trevor's declaration that "the short story of today owes her a very great debt." "I envy the skill of Mary Lavin. . . . In her capacity to make much out of little, to compress an entire ethos into an apparently banal situation, she reminds us what literature is all about." --Anthony Burgess "I cannot think of any Irish writer who has gone so profoundly without fear into the Irish heart." --V. S. Pritchett

In a Cafe: Selected Stories

Penguin Classics

Stated First Printing in clean unclipped dust jacket. Clean unfaded black cloth boards with green metallic lettering and decoration. No bumping or wear. Binding is tight and square, pages and edges are clean. Clean endpapers, no names, writing or bookplates. Twenty-two stories set in Ireland by an Irish writer who is considered by critics to be one of the greatest short story writers of our day. 425 pages. Clean dust jacket has slight edge wear, a few short closed edge tears, not price clipped. Enclosed in new archival quality removable mylar cover.

Collected stories

Genre Fiction

Houghton/Mifflin

Three children take a trip around the world to give their parents a rest from taking care of them.

The second-best children in the world

Short stories from this American writer who moved to Ireland and become one of that countries greatest authors.

A Memory and Other Stories

Houghton, Mifflin Co.

'Mary Lavin's stories... are subtle without making a palaver about it, beautifully told, no pat endings, no slickness; and as in life, nothing is resolved.' William TrevorFirst published in 1943, Tales from Bective Bridge is a collection of ten stories that memorably depict the rural mid-lands of Ireland and their people. Mary Lavin, though American-born, grew up in Athenry; and though the Irish short story was a dauntingly well-established form she succeeded in reinventing it with this, her debut collection, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, which exhibits a Chekhovian gift for the meaning of small things, contrary behaviours and emotions. This 2012 edition, reissued for the centenary of Mary Lavin's birth, includes an introduction by Evelyn Conlon.  'One of modern Irish fiction's most subversive voices... [Lavin's] art explored often brutal tensions, disappointments and frustrations dictating the relationships within so-called 'normal' families.' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

Tales from Bective Bridge

Faber&Faber

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Books by LAVIN, Mary