The Other Irish Tradition
Edited by Rob Doyle
Dalkey Archive Press
Author and essayist Rob Doyle has compiled a new anthology of Irish writing. Populated by writers who are ‘subversives, instinctual avant-gardists, and outsiders who strain at the leash of convention’, the anthology covers almost 300 years of daring and innovative fiction.
Excerpts from Joyce and Beckett, luminaries of the Irish avant-garde, stand at the centre of the book. Preceding them are figures such as Swift and Sterne, which Doyle rightfully re-casts within the frame of the avant-garde. However, the real joy of this book lies within its bravura kaleidoscope of excerpts from writers who have blossomed in the wake of the era of 20th century high modernism. The inclusion of work by Eimar O’Duffy, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Desmond Hogan and Anakana Schofield provides a feast of material that is genuinely challenging in terms of both form and content.
Another notable contribution comes from June Caldwell. ‘Leitrim Flip’, her story of sexual misadventure in the BDSM community, closes the anthology and does well to showcase the vitality of contemporary Irish fiction. Indeed, on a thematic level, sexual transgression looms large within the anthology. It begs the question as to whether the weight afforded to such material reflects an organic tendency within the Irish avant-garde, or whether the predilection of the book’s editor has informed the selection. Readers can decide.
Words: Darragh Deighan-Gregory
