Homesickness
I’m trying to read as many books as I can with some variation of “homesick” in the title. So, ta da, this is Homesickness, a short story collection by the Irish writer Colin Barrett. As one review points out, Barrett’s characters are mostly “homesick” because even though they are usually at “home” — mostly in Co Mayo in Ireland, but Canada makes an appearance as well — they “no longer fit.” From the aspiring pro footballer who has returned from England to orphaned siblings trying to muddle on, the characters in Barrett’s stories embody something different than simply “missing home.”
I think it’s fair to say that this collection is “very Irish.” You’ve got the forever-vague yet weirdly detailed directionals. (“Keep along that road a mile and a half until you come to a farm with a yellow bungalow and a ’92 Fiat motorhome up on bricks out the front.”) References to those who are a part of Ireland’s “diasporic” population churn. People who “know you,” but know nothing at all about who you “are.”
Maybe “homesick” is a state of being that’s bereft of anonymity…but one in which you wonder if you’re really known at all. As Sergeant Jackie Noonan says in the first story (‘A Shooting in Rathreedane’), “That’s the thing about Mayo. I find it’s very presentable from a distance. It’s only up close it lets you down.” #Homesickness
originally published on instagram