posted on 29 Jan 2016

The Rose Garden by Maeve Brennan

I bought this book of short stories last summer in Charlotte, USA, where the works of Maeve Brennan seem to be considerably more popular than they are in the UK. Here she is largely forgotten and I don't think I've ever seen a copy of her books in any of the shops I've visited over recent times.

Brennan's reputation in the States is based to a large degree on her work for The New Yorker magazine and Harpers fashion monthly but she also produced two or three volumes of short stories and a novella before she died. In her later years she was almost certainly in the grip of some kind of mental illness and this made her behaviour unpredictable and rather erratic. There are those, however, who claim that she was Truman Capote's model for the character, Holly Golightly in Breakfast At Tiffany's - but this claim has never been substantiated.

Brennan was actually born in Dublin and her father and mother were significant figures in the Easter Uprising - Robert Brennan was ultimately appointed as the Free State's representative in America and so the family, including Maeve, moved to live there. She stayed even when her parents returned to Ireland and as a result of these connections she is also cited as an improtant representative of the Irish writing diaspora.

The short stories that make up The Rose Garden demonstrate a quite delicate writing style but with a waspish sting. Her stories have a domestic feel to them - she is excellent on the details of suburban life - but beneath that surface there is, in her best work, a forensic and baleful eye that captures discomfort and social pretention with real accuracy.

There are 20 stories in this collection and many of them had been published elsewhere prior to being brought together here. Although her work has been widely admired by other short story writers I think it's fair to say that across the piece the stories are uneven. Where her writing fails to take off the overall impression can be flat and repetative. But when she's good, she's very good. One of my very favourite stories in this collection is The Gentleman In The Pink-and-White Striped Shirt which has all of her best qualities - humour, social commentary and a delicious lancing of pretentious behaviour. 

These are stories you have to take slowly. It's no good romping through this from one to the next without stopping to roll the flavours around your mouth - this is writing for the people who like their detail and enjoy watching stories build slowly.

Published by Counterpoint you will be able to get The Rose Garden for under £10 in a lovely little hardback as long as you buy second hand.

 

Terry Potter

January 2016