DURING THE recent bad weather, a conversation I had with a Breton friend who lives outside Montreal came to mind: “When you get up in the morning and spend two hours digging your car out from the snow to discover that you have dug out your next door neighbour’s car, it is time to go back to bed.”
Some weeks ago I intended to read the book earmarked for this article on the train to Dublin. This I duly did only to discover on my return that I had read the wrong book. However, unlike my Breton friend, this error turned out to be somewhat fortuitous as there were many similarities between the two works in question.
Both are published by publishing houses based west of the Corrib, they are both written by women who were not native Galwegians, and both are collections of short stories.
Susan Millar Du Mars, who hails from Philadelphia, has been living in Galway for some time and is better known as a poet - although she has published one collection of stories with Belfast’s Lapwing Press. Her new collection Lights In The Distance is published by the fledgling Doire Press in Indreabhán.
Dubliner Moya Roddy has also been living in Galway for some time and is the author of the novel The Long Way Home (Attic Press, 1992 ) and has written countless television and radio scripts. While her first published story appeared in 1991, Other People is her debut collection and is published by Wordsonthestreet, based in San Antonio Park in Salthill.
Outside of any inherent value these two books offer us, and given the current threats the Irish publishing world is facing, it is most heartening to see two independent publishing houses operating in such modest circumstances.
At a time when cynicism is rife and the country’s political and economic, not to mention cultural, future is uncertain, Doire Press and Wordsonthestreet offer a welcome platform on which our local writers can explore the humanity lived and suffered as we lurch from crisis to crisis.
In terms of publishing these presses are a refreshing oasis in a cultural atmosphere that is struggling for survival.
The two books to hand are a classic example of their value to the community. Given the trends in modern publishing, it is a moot point whether they would have seen the light of day were it not for the courage of these publishers to believe in them and to present their work to the public.
In a curious way there are many similarities between the two collections. They are imbued with a savage anger bordering on despair and the suicidal. Both of them mirror a cruel uncaring world from which the normal “decent” human values are being eroded and what is left is an almost existential futile existence bereft of hope or love.
Where the books differ is in the reaction of the two writers to this, each one responding according to her own individual vision. Herein is the value and interest of the work.
Moya Roddy’s work is infused with an ironic almost cynical humour evident in the title story while the feisty Susan Millar DuMars exhibits a more defiant approach as in the “to hell with the begrudgers” ambience of the final story in the collection Lennon and McCartney.
These books ask basic questions about the modern Irish human experience. Whether or not they offer answers is somewhat irrelevant. That, to a degree, is up to the reader. The important thing is that the work is there, that these small presses exist to publish them and for these reasons they deserve our attention and respect.
