Heaven Lies About Us: Stories

by Eugene McCabe

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.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Irish Literature, Ireland

Paperback

First published April 17, 2004

About the author

Eugene McCabe was an Irish novelist, short story writer, playwright, and tv screenwriter.

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories make me feel I've just read the soul of Ireland.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Never before had I witnessed anything so affecting, so full of heartbreak, as that awkward, final dance of farewell".

These stories are many things: they are raw, violent, heartbreaking, loud & quiet. They delve into the depths of human pain and trauma and deal with it in the most compelling way.

[Ronan Doyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best friendships I've forged in recent years, one of my most trusted confidantes, is a Northern Protestant. At a time that was an unthinkable vista on this island, and for those—me certainly among them—too young to remember the bad times this book is a beautifully stark reminder of how it once was. A great bounty, this collection of many if not all McCabe's short stories thrives in prodding at the cultural divides that have left Ireland, especially its border region, in the mess it remains, an immovable frontier based on the shakiest foundations. In taking things from both sides and a variety of historical and cultural foundations, McCabe brings things back to first principles with a grim focus on the essentialism and intractability of all positions.

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Colm Tóibín reads Music at Annahullian by Eugene McCabe

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio...

[Paul Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superbe and masterful story-telling. These short stories are certainly bleak, with their tales of famine, superstition, oppression (both from the British and the Catholic Church), and McCabe leaves no false hope of redemption or happy-endings, but the powerful writing brings the characters alive in a way I have rarely seen in short stories. He examines history in this corner of Ireland (Fermanagh) through the eyes of the catholic tenants and the Protestant landowners during the Great Famine, the UDR members and the IRA volunteers during the 70s. His eye is merciless and extremely fine-tuned. His dialogue is extraordinary. Truly great writing for any who are interested in Ireland, in the short-story form or just in great writing.

[Adrian Fingleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A disparate collection of short stories, some a lot shorter than others. I preferred the current (20th century) stories to the ones set in the famine. They are very credible vignettes of life along the Irish border with Northern Ireland. The dialogue rings true. Many of the stories are hard and brutal, but nonetheless quite credible. At times it felt more like a play than a book, and while I appreciated it was well written and rooted in the soil along the border, the subject matter was at times hard reading.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Goodreads terms, this really was more 'amazing' than 'really liked' because hard to like a book of stories whose weight of historical- and religion-inflicted sorrow is so heavy that it was necessary to allow a week or more between each tale. Yet equally necessary to come back each time, eager to take in the prose of the next.

No tension-manufactured 'thriller' impacts as much as the awful wickedness of lives such as these.

[T H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some brilliant and some disappointing but food for thought

[Vivien · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've given it 3, it should be 3.5 because these short stories are brilliant but call me shallow, they are also depressing!

[Nessej Anibco · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the first few pages of this book, I knew instantly that I was facing a challenge: How do you read a book written by an Irish author? I thought to myself, 'Just wing it!'

The title story from the collection of short narratives is definitely one of the standouts. It follows the death of a child, preceded by a series of incestuous encounters by her own brother along with her own religious-freak mother, who denied the truth just to satisfy her self-gratifying beliefs.

Along with this, my other favorite stories are the quadrilogy of The Orphan, The Master, The Landlord and The Mother which focuses on the different sides of Ireland's poorhouses; a struggle of the early government between morality and the survival of the pauper class.

Heartbreaking and compelling, Eugene McCabe tells sad and depressing stories from the early 19th century of Ireland driven by the ironic juxtaposition of humanity, racial differences and religion.

[Desmond Beddoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Irish soul and history both dark and resilient is well presented, beautifully crafted - will leave you wanting more.