Nuala O’Connor
Joyride to Jupiter
New Island
Nuala O’Connor’s latest short story collection is titled Joyride to Jupiter, and it is chock full of what one might call rather uncharitable physical descriptions: there’s a woman with “a reality TV face; one of those faces that drips tears when her dough fails to prove, or her housemates vote her out”; a boss whose skin “was the same mottled, churlish pink as a cow’s udder”; and there’s “mousy, miserable, boring-as-shite Beatrice”. Throughout her affecting yet oddly humorous tales, O’Connor never fails to report gleefully on the textures and smells of human anatomy – bodies are repugnant, comical, ripe for gripping.
Above all, O’Connor shines a light on the process of aging and how we emotionally cope with bodily decay. Some characters do it through sex, others through humour, others through… well, murder. The message seems to be that, whether we battle or take pleasure in them, our bodies will continue to be hurled mercilessly through time, so we might as well meet our fate with grace.
Indeed, there’s a bit of the oh-well-let’s-get-on-with-it attitude one tends to find in eccentric elderly matrons. If you wanted desperately to avoid words like “chill” and “cool”, you might say she comes across as unfussy and self-deprecating. The stories in Joyride to Jupiter delve into themes of dementia, infertility and murder, but there’s a sprightliness and a lightness all the way through. O’Connor not only explores this emotional terrain deftly, but does so with a positive spring in her step.
Words – Eliza Ariadni Kalfa
