I Hear You
by Paul McVeigh
Following his critically acclaimed debut novel The Good Son, Paul McVeigh returns with a volume of short stories published as part of the Salt Modern Stories series. The title of the collection – I Hear You – is a reference to the fact that these works were written and commissioned for BBC Radio 4. In his introduction to the volume, McVeigh explains the challenges of writing for this medium – the stories had to be of a specific length reflecting the duration of each broadcast (roughly 2000 words) and needed to cater for a pre-watershed audience. A less talented writer would have considered these requirements limiting. In McVeigh’s hands, however, they become prompts for punchy stories in which the characters are laid bare through their respective narrative voices.
The central piece in this volume is The Circus,
a sequence of ten stories set in the vicinity of Cliftonville Circus, North
Belfast, each of which focuses on a would-be participant in a local talent show.
The stories are connected through ingenious cross-references, leading to a
final story which ties up all loose ends. Against this greater narrative, the
insights into the variegated cast of characters also reveal a changing community, still haunted by the Troubles, coming to terms with contemporary, diverse, multicultural society.
Of the remaining stories which complete the collection, two are particularly poignant (“Tickles”, about a man and his mother who suffers from dementia, and “Daddy Christmas”, in which a gay man writes a letter to an imaginary son), while the third, “Cuckoo”, has a surreal vibe.
This is a slim but compelling collection of
well-crafted stories which should ideally be read aloud… or listened to!
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