THE TOPOGRAPHY OF HIDDEN STORIES

Irish Americans deal with challenges and opportunities in the 20th century.

In this short story collection, MacDonnell follows a large cast of Irish American characters through the ups and downs of the second half of the 20th century. In “Whistle-Stop,” a child draws her parents’ ire when she absorbs their adulation of presidential candidate John F. Kennedy. “Red Stain on Yellow Dress” follows a young pregnant woman traveling to get an illegal abortion. In “Diana’s Dresses,” the setting is the late 1990s as a mother and daughter deal with questions of mortality while visiting a traveling exhibition of Princess Diana’s wardrobe. Problems of life and death also appear in “Dancing With NED,” in which a seriously ill woman’s husband and sister accompany her to an oncologist’s office, “a pinnacle of the health care system, a place above bed pans, barf buckets and blood, the stench of unhealing wounds, the fearful cries of the dying.” The author’s characters cover a range of socio-economic classes, but nearly all are of Irish descent, with many having roots on the South Shore of Boston. “Soy Paco,” which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, is the exception, though its theme and tone allow it to fit easily into the rest of the collection. While there are moments of tenderness, like the bonds a new mom unexpectedly finds with her own mother in “Violets,” violence, abuse, and dysfunction more often characterize the volume’s families. Those who fail to conform are often pressured or ostracized, beatings are doled out, and a pacifist mother makes her son throw away the violent toys he received for Christmas in “Weapons of War.”

Despite the stories’ bleak aspects, the book is an enjoyable read. MacDonnell’s writing is frequently elegant, full of vivid metaphors (“His sisters, three pale silent women, who’d nod and sigh and press their palms together like Daddy had just spoken The Word, and that The Word had come to dwell among us”) and descriptive language (“She sees her mother surrounded by lengths of these fabrics: satin, tulle, taffeta, shantung; her mother, a hard bright thing, a stone, in this rainbow of luscious color”). The plots are both familiar and unpredictable, drawing readers in while challenging their preconceptions. In addition to themes of family, loyalty, and independence that resonate from one tale to another, the work is also full of minor details that recur throughout. Three stories, set in different times and places, feature a baby sister named Caitlin; Frank Sinatra songs provide much of the soundtrack; older women wear “polyester pull-on pants”; and two tales are narrated by women living in buildings known as the Ten Commandments in the 1970s Bronx. Many of the protagonists are unnamed, adding to the repetitive nature of the stories as well as the sense that the discrete tales blend into a single narrative of a collective experience. Fans of Andre Dubus III and Jennifer Haigh will find much to appreciate in MacDonnell’s exploration of a narrow slice of the American experience.

A strong collection of stories connected by deep Irish American roots.