In these twelve stories, McCabe plumbs the soul of the Irish border counties, where confusion, divided loyalties, and heightened emotions are part of everyday life, whether that life is lived in the aftermath of "the great hunger" or in the face of the current Catholic/Protestant conflict. A master of arresting dialogue and intimate characterization, Eugene McCabe demonstrates his outstanding gift for short fiction in this revelatory and haunting collection. The title of McCabe's collection of 12 short stories set in Ireland is bleakly ironic. From the great famine through the Troubles, religion, here, is a flashpoint for hatred or has been reduced to a joyless recitation of rules and regulations, stripped of all comfort and generosity of spirit. For Marion, the troubled young girl in the title story, it's a well-worn teddy bear, not her fanatically religious mother, who provides respite in the face of her brother's brutal sexual assaults. In the brilliant, bloodcurdling "Victims," about a conflicted band of IRA terrorists who take a group of British aristocrats hostage, it is the calculating leader and his ruthless right-hand man who recite prayers in flawless Latin. In "Music at Annahullion," an old, abandoned piano stirs up an ancient feud between two brothers, one devoted to God, the other to drink. McCabe does not spare his readers in these unflinching, starkly dramatic depictions of emotional and spiritual suffering. Richly imagined and written in spare, haunting prose, these are unrelenting, poignant, and powerful stories. Joanne Wilkinson Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “McCabe is a master of spare and beautiful language...His sense of land and the creatures that live there is powerful and illuminating.” ― Washington Post Book World Eugene McCabe was born in Glasgow in 1930. He is the recipient of the Butler Award from the Irish American Cultural Institute. His works include Death and Nightingales , the award-winning novella Victims , and the screenplay for his story Cancer , which won the Prague International Award. This is his first collection of stories to be published in the United States. Used Book in Good Condition