David Hayden

He compared her to one of the greatest writers in world literature.

And, you know, normally when somebody does that, you hear comparisons of short story writers to Chekhov all the time.

And you just think a person just needs to go and stand in the corner and be ashamed of themselves because it's almost certainly not true.

But in the...

Cool your head.

In the case of Maeve Brennan, you can completely see that.

You know, the great Russian writers were immensely important to the development of modern Irish literature.

And Frank O'Connor himself, Sean O'Fallon, were both enormous admirers of Chekhov and Tegenev.

But not as good, though.

Much of the time.

With Brennan, you go, yeah, okay, Tegenev, you get that.

It's the lightness and the density, the felicity, the terrific ear, the universalizing of the specific.

It's all there.

Sinead.

So I think it's ferocious in a number of ways.

I mean, the clarity of vision of the disappointments of relationships,

You know, sibling relationships, family relationships that are so important you can't escape from them.

The relationships that you choose with partners, the failings, the everyday failings of small cruelties, and that's all over those stories.

But also...

I think this is maybe one of the reasons why they were difficult to take root in Ireland until relatively recently, is that it is a fairly ferocious judgment on the failings of both sides of the political establishment, whether it's Free State or Republican finna fall.