Leannan Sidhe - Reviewed by Kath O’Sullivan, New Zealand Society of Authors
“I watch her cycle in from Gaineamh Dubh, her face tired and damp from the evening rain. Long copper curls twist in the wind like wire behind a face of stone. Her eyes fixed firmly on her destination. Icicles hang from her handlebars.”
So opens the first story, Leannán Sidhe, a sad little tale of an encounter between an Irish Kiwi and lonely colleen in an Irish pub.
‘The Ringmaster’s Daughter’ warns it’s not sensible to believe everything we hear from those we meet on a journey. When Kathy, finds an intercity train ticket and jumps on a train she falls in with Dal, who claims to be of Hungarian descent. Dal invites Kathy to the pauper’s funeral being held for her father, a former circus ringmaster and weird things begin to happen. Perhaps the moral of the story is, never drink an elixir given to you by a stranger, and if you do, do not be surprised at the outcome.
“Reaching for her glass, she made to pick it up but for some reason it slipped between her fingers and onto the floor. Confused, she felt herself falling too, sliding back against the wall until she was looking at the room from an awkward angle. For one precise moment she wondered at the strangeness of it all, then the last shards of peace tinkled in the back of her mind. And the world just folded itself away.”
I loved the whimsical tone of this story.
I preferred the stories with an Irish setting to those based in New Zealand. Maybe this was because the title fooled me into thinking I was going to get a feast of tales set in Ireland.
The only negative comments are brought about by what seem to be, at times, a surplus of adjectives and adjectival phrases plus some little snippets of what I call pompous prose for example: ‘Over the final week at the Ministry I immerse myself in my work, focusing solely on the completion of my reports, and withdrawing from social interaction with staff.’ This has an almost Dickensian ring.
Do not be put off by these remarks - the stories are intriguing, and hold the reader’s attention. An ideal read for a lazy day at the bach.