A Lazy Eye: Stories

Mary Morrissy, award-winning author of the highly praised first novel Mother of Pearl, offers here a collection of fifteen stories that confirms her place among Ireland's best contemporary writers. Primarily set in the bleak landscapes of modern Ireland, these stories peel away the layers of daily existence, revealing the devastation wrought by the most ordinary of gestures. With a deft hand and a discerning eye, Morrissy writes of private battles waged, past selves, lives measured and remeasured, and of those rare moments of clarity and unobscured vision that grace our lives. In "Rosa", two sisters conspire to perform an unholy nativity. With a mischievous irony, "Divided Attentions" portrays a woman frantically telling her guilty secret to an obscene caller. In the title story, a woman bewildered and misunderstood during a trip abroad begins to comprehend the sum of the small indignities she has undergone. The characters in these stories act out a flawed vision of the world, each seeking redemption and understanding.