A review by nigellicus
Guests of the Nation by Frank O'Connor

5.0

It's impossible to deny the power of the title story, arguably one of the great short stories of the English language. An utterly devastating portrayal of the artificial and imposed morality of war and duty overcoming simple humanity. One might expect the rest of the stories are more of the same, but while they all have that distinct tone of tragic regret and loss of innocence, some are quite funny - 'a flippant attitude dominates' the blurb quotes reprovingly, but these are the stories that almost burst with life. It never gets very far from the sense of danger and the horror of the split - most of the stories, barring the first, are set during the Civil War rather than the War Of Independence, though it can be a few pages before this becomes clear. I wonder are there cues I as an Irish person should be picking up on quicker, or was O'Connor letting the information present in its own time? Anyway, some funny stories, some odd stories, some sad and poignant ones, and one puzzling one - I think I worked off the point of The Sisters, but I'm not sure.

They are wonderfully well written pieces of social realism, firmly, earthily grounded and full of Irish voices, mostly Corkonian, and Irish attitudes and their tiny squabbles and concerns set against the backdrop of a struggle that might not be epic but was certainly bitter and brutal. Certainly they are world class stories from a master of the form.