Böcker av Billy O'Callaghan

An exquisite, heart-breaking novel by an Irish discovery.Radiant with beauty, longing, and desire, and deeply touching, this literary novel, reminiscent of the works of William Trevor and Colm Tóibín, evokes the long love affair between a man and a woman, each married to another, who meet every month in a decaying hotel in Coney Island, Brooklyn.On a bitterly cold winter's afternoon, Michael and Caitlin, two middle-aged lovers, escape their unhappy marriages to keep an illicit date. Once a month for the past quarter of a century, Coney Island has been their haven, the place in which they have abandoned themselves to their love.These beautiful, carefully-rationed days have long sustained Michael and Caitlin's love, and have helped help them survive the tedium of their lives separate from each other. But now, amid the howling winds whipping off the Atlantic, and a snow storm blackening the horizon, this nearly abandoned resort feels like the edge of the world. On this winter day, burrowed in their private cocoon, they will discover that their lives are on the brink of change.Michael's wife is battling cancer, and Caitlin's husband is about to receive a major promotion, which will involve relocating to the Midwest. After half a lifetime together in their most intimate moments, certain long-denied facts must be faced, decisions made, consequences weighed and, maybe, just maybe, chances finally taken.A quiet, intense depiction of love and intimacy, My Coney Island Baby reveals, within the course of a single day's passing, the histories, landscapes, tragedies and occasional moments of wonder that constitute the lives of two people who, although living worlds apart, have been inexorably drawn together. But even in this most private of retreats, a place seemingly built for romance, the most heartbreaking of realities loom.

"I know of no writer on either side of the Atlantic who is better at exploring the human spirit under assault than Billy O'Callaghan."-Robert Olen Butler The prizewinning Irish short-story writer and author of the highly praised novel, My Coney Island Baby, delivers his most accomplished book of short fiction to date-a poignant story collection that "grips from the opening page" (Bernard MacLaverty). These are twelve poignant, quietly dazzling, and carefully crafted stories that explore the resiliency of the human heart and its ability to keep beating in the wake of bereavement, violence, lost love, and incomparable trauma and grief. Spanning a century and two continents, from the muddy fields of Ireland to a hotel room in Paris, a dingy bar in Segovia to an airplane bound for Taipei, The Boatman and Other Stories follows an unforgettable cast of characters. Three gunshots on the Irish border define the course of a young man's life; a writer clings fast to a star-crossed affair with a woman who has never been fully within his reach; a fisherman accustomed to hard labor rolls up his sleeves to dig a grave for his child; and a pair of newlyweds embark on their first adventure, living wild on the deserted Beginish Island. Ranging from the elegiac to the brutally confrontational, these densely layered tales reveal the quiet heroism and gentle dignity of ordinary life. Billy O'Callaghan is a master celebrant of the smallness of the human flame against the dark: its strength and its steady brightness.

A Book to Look Out for in 2023 in the Irish Times, RTÉ Guide and the Sunday Independent1980s Cork. Jack Shine is sorting through his mother's belongings when he discovers a shoe box full of love letters and newspaper clippings. Jack's mother, Rebekah, was a young woman when the Second World War broke out, and she came to Cork alone as a Jewish refugee from Vienna. She died when Jack was young, and he never learned of his father's identity. So, who wrote these love letters to Rebekah and why did she keep newspaper clippings about a famous Austrian footballer player? Who was 'The Paper Man'?As Jack begins to uncover the story of his mother's life, he is transported to 1930s Vienna, a bustling, cosmopolitan city on the brink of war. At the heart of the action is Matthias Sindelar, one of the most famous footballers in the world, known to all as 'The Paper Man' because of his effortless weave across the pitch. When Sindelar unexpectedly meets Rebekah, a young woman from a small town, both of their lives are changed forever. But as war looms, they must accept that their survival will tear them apart.Based on real people and true events, The Paper Man is the story of twentieth-century Europe, the Holocaust, the cost of fame, and love against the odds. It is a story that will take Jack far from Cork and all the way back to Vienna, and towards The Paper Man.