New Dubliners: Original Stories Celebrating 100 Years of Joyce's Dubliners
*Starred Review* It's just a bit past a century since James Joyce wrote his classic story collection,Dubliners."Dear dirty Dublin" isn't the same city now that property there regularly sells for the highest rates in history, giving a new meaning todearwhile makingdirtya thing of the past. Time to look at the streets again and the new people who walk the ways that Joyce made famous from his exile in Trieste. A few of the writers collected here are known in America, such as Roddy Doyle and Maeve Binchy, while others, such as Clare Boylan and Bernard MacLaverty, have a stronger reputation over there. But all the contributors have produced remarkably memorable, well-crafted work that reveals the kind of inner torment that Joyce knew so well. Take, for instance, the situation of the old friends who collide in a Dublin pub; one of them bemoans his "Sunday father" status with the children of the woman the other lusted after, but in a sharp, complicating ending, the listener discovers the whole plaint is a lie. Binchy, who began her career as a well-regarded short story writer, presents a young girl fallen under the spell of her worldly American emigre aunt. MacLaverty brings us into the mind of a dying older woman confused by mortality and modernity. These are fine stories, each on its own; together, they constitute a collection worthy of its namesake.Patricia MonaghanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved