Around St. Patrick’s Day I treated Armavirumque readers to my five favorite pieces of Irish literature. Number three on that list was “First Confession,” a hilarious short story about a wee lad who “had it all arranged to kill [his] grandmother.” The author of the story is Frank O’Connor. For many years “First Confession” was all I’d read of his, but I’ve been making my way through the recently published Everyman’s Library edition of his work, edited by Julian Barnes, and I’m amazed I’ve never been urged to read O’Connor before.
I’m not the only one with that complaint. As Barnes notes in his introduction to Part Four of the collection:
Should you need further encouragement to pick up this gem, here’s a terrific review from today’s Wall Street Journal, giving an overview of O’Connor’s “encyclopedic portfolio of eloquence,” which included “novels, short stories, memoirs, essays and original poems.” “Indeed,” writes William Birdthistle, “in a land crowded with well-spoken modern writers—Joyce, Yeats, Synge—O’Connor’s voice has always had to struggle to be heard.” Read a few of his stories and I promise you’ll wonder why.The novelist Russell Banks described the effect on him of what has become a classic textbook in American writing schools: “When at last I read The Lonely Voice . . . the effect on me at 37 was like the effect on me at 27 of Forster’s Aspects of the Novel and at 17 of Pound’s ABC of Reading: gratitude for having received sound instruction and profound annoyance with myself for not having got it sooner.”
