WALTER MACKEN, probably the author most associated with Galway city, would have been 97 today. What is not generally realised is that he had strong east Galway connections, his mother hailing from Cappatagle near Ballinasloe.
Most of Macken’s claim to be Ireland’s finest popular novelist of the 20th century stems from his books Rain On The Wind and Seek The Fair Land.
However one of his best novels, recently republished by New Island Books, is The Bogman and is set in his mother’s part of the country. What is not also recognised is that Macken published three volumes of short stories during his lifetime (two more were published posthumously ) and some of those stories rank among the best Irish short stories of the 20th century.
Within 20 years of Macken’s death, Ballinasloe’s Des Hogan published his first novel The Ikon Maker. He subsequently published several volumes of short stories which would compare favourably with any published worldwide.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the recently published short story collection The China Factory (The Stinging Fly Press ) is by an east Galway native, Mary Costello. In terms of quality it is up there with the very best. What is even more remarkable is that in this, her first collection, Costello demonstrates a mastery of the short story that few seasoned writers attain.
Any writer will tell you that the short story as a genre demands the most stringent discipline. Not only does it require great technical skill, it also requires inspirational prose genius to pull it off. Apart from a slightly nervous start in the first story, ‘The China Factory’, and presumably the first of the collection to have been written, these strictures do not in any way phase Costello.
From the moment of exquisite tenderness when “Gus put his hand on the madman’s shoulder and drew his head close and said something and then the two heads were bent and moving and talking”, the story moves onto a different and more solid level.
As Gus the malodorous, hidden alcoholic, addict of western novels, and held in the lowest esteem by all the other factory workers, quietly takes the gun from the hysterical Vinnie and, leading him by the hand, walks him gently and slowly down the road towards the latter’s home, the reader is lost hook, line, and sinker.
The predominant mood of The China Factory is a sense of helplessness intermingled with a silent desperation as the characters find themselves backed into lives that are futile and absurd.
The narration is strongly resonant of the literary landscapes found in the work of Albert Camus and Alistair MacLeod, but comparisons are irrelevant as the stories are written in Costello’s own personal style which is as refreshing as it is confident and energetic. It is this style which gives the book a definite heartbeat, lifting the stories above the mundane and imbuing them with a Je ne sais quoi that gives them their unique flavour.
Given the isolation many of the characters of this book fall victim to, it is not surprising that the tenor of the stories is generally dark with suicide a constant theme. Yet as the reader progresses through the stories, there emerges the realisation that despite their loneliness and isolation, there is also a deep and compassionate humanity which is at the heart of Costello’s style, as seen in Gus’s simple but powerful gesture in the title story, and for which the reader is truly grateful.
The China Factory is a remarkable debut. It epitomises everything that is special and wonderful about the short story genre. It introduces us to a powerful new voice in Irish literature, a voice that hopefully we will hear again and again.
