Collected Stories

Frank O'Connor

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781497655034
• Subtopic: Literature General

The definitive collection from an Irish literary icon, "one of the masters of the short story" ( Newsweek).
In the words of W. B. Yeats, Frank O'Connor "did for Ireland what Chekhov did for Russia." Anne Tyler, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, described his tales as "encapsulated universes." This indispensable volume contains the best of his short fiction, from "Guests of the Nation" (adapted into an Obie Award–winning play) to "The Mad Lomasneys" to "First Confession" to "My Oedipus Complex."
 
Dublin schoolteacher Ned Keating waves good-bye to a charming girl and to any thoughts of returning to his village home in the lyrical and melancholy "Uprooted." A boy on an important mission is waylaid by a green-eyed temptress and seeks forgiveness in his mother's loving arms in "The Man of the House," a tale that draws on O'Connor's own difficult childhood. A series of awkward encounters and humorous misunderstandings perfectly encapsulates the complicated legacy of Irish immigration in "Ghosts," the bittersweet account of an American family's pilgrimage to the land of their forefathers. In these and dozens of other stories, O'Connor accomplishes the miraculous, laying bare entire lives and histories in the space of a few pages.
 
As a writer, critic, and teacher, O'Connor elevated the short story to astonishing new heights. This career-spanning anthology, epic in scope yet brimming with small moments and intimate details, is a true pleasure to read from first page to last.
 

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Guests of the Nation
• The Late Henry Conran
• The Bridal Night
• The Grand Vizier’s Daughters
• Song Without Words
• The Shepherds
• The Long Road to Ummera
• The Cheapjack
• The Luceys
• Uprooted
• The Mad Lomasneys
• News for the Church
• Judas
• The Babes in the Wood
• The Frying-Pan
• The Miracle
• Don Juan’s Temptation
• First Confession
• The Man of the House
• The Drunkard
• Christmas Morning
• My First Protestant
• Legal Aid
• The Masculine Principle
• The Sentry
• The Lady of the Sagas
• Darcy in the Land of Youth
• My Oedipus Complex
• The Pretender
• Freedom
• Peasants
• The Majesty of the Law
• Eternal Triangle
• Masculine Protest
• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
• The Little Mother
• A Sense of Responsibility
• Counsel for Oedipus
• The Old Faith
• Unapproved Route
• The Study of History
• Expectation of Life
• The Ugly Duckling
• Fish for Friday
• A Set of Variations on a Borrowed Theme
• The American Wife
• The Impossible Marriage
• The Cheat
• The Weeping Children
• An Out-and-Out Free Gift
• The Corkerys
• A Story by Maupassant
• A Great Man
• Androcles and the Army
• Public Opinion
• Achilles’ Heel
• The Wreath
• The Teacher’s Mass
• The Martyr
• Requiem
• An Act of Charity
• The Mass Island
• There Is a Lone House
• The Story Teller
• Last Post
• The Cornet Player Who Betrayed Ireland
• Ghosts
• About the Author
• Copyright Page