Paul O’Reilly’s debut collection of stories, The Girl Missing from the Window, will be launched at the Focal Literary Festival in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford on Friday June 26.
O’Reilly – a film-maker and writer - is long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award 2015.
“O’Reilly’s writing style is spare, with no artifice, just plenty of intimacy, " wrote The Examiner critic. "A promising debut from a writer who is attuned to the tawdriness and the sadness that stalk his characters’ worlds, “
Peter Murphy, author of John The Revelator and Shall We Gather by the River (Faber & Faber) has also enthused about this auspicious collection, which is published in paperback by Doire Press.
"The author pushes all the unsavoury aspects of existence under your nose: the comedy and horror of mothers with Alzheimer’s and fathers hooked up to morphine pumps and swingers’ weekends gone horribly wrong — or horribly right. This is the way things are, these stories seem to say, and there’s a trapdoor under every footfall.”
The launch commences at 7.30pm, at Presentation Arts Centre, Enniscorthy. The author will also make a special guest appearance at the Over the Edge series of readings, on July 9 at Galway City Library (commences 6.30pm). O'Reilly will also read at the Cork International Short Story Festival 2015 which runs Sept 23-26.
Read RTÉ TEN'S review here
