Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Marriage and divorce, Irish-style


Book: In Sunshine or In Shadow: Stories by Irish Women
Authors: various
Published: 1999 (Delacorte Press)
Pages: 316

Did y’all know that divorce was illegal in Ireland until the 1990s, and they had several big nation-wide debates and votes on it until it finally passed? Okay. Now you do. That is the most I took away from this collection of short stories.

That is the central theme, and while I admire cohesiveness in anthologies, this one might’ve been a wee bit too narrow, because despite spanning a few decades to either side of the decision, all the stories were either about families/couples who were like, “It’s about damn time” in varying degrees of loudness or single women hopeful that the decision would push along their love lives. It was either Kramer vs. Kramer or Sex and the City, more or less.



Donate. I don’t really want to, because I love the idea of the collection and I always want to keep any short stories I can get my hands on (and look at that title!), but none of these stood out as inspiring or re-readable. 

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