THE RED PETTICOAT

A collection of shamrock-patterned short stories has the range of the Irish countryside, church and city and holds hard to the ""ould sod"". The ""dear women"" -- and those not so dear, the clergy and their flocks, the tatters and the ugliness -- all are part of the twenty incidents here included. There's birthing and fighting, mating and teaching, witchery and sex, children and death, nuns and farmers -- in these graphic pieces and grumbling is hand in hand with a ""heg of laughter"". The dimensions here are small but the effect is sharp.