The first review of As Long as it Takes has been published on London Grip. Fiona Sinclair’s review is headed that she finds the stories “harrowing but hopeful”. Sounds like my life story! Seriously, though, I am delighted that Fiona has read the stories in such depth and has absolutely ‘got’ the themes of these Irish women’s lives. She ends the review:
Whilst this is a collection of short stories focusing particularly on the lives of Irish women, their struggles are in fact universal. This is a celebration of women with indomitable spirits who are devoted to their families and above all are survivors.
For those of you that don’t want just “harrowing”, there is quite a lot of humour in these stories, but they will make you think and make you cry – or so I have been told by the first readers of the book. Read Fiona Sinclair’s full review on London Grip
I am awaiting more of the kind of questions I was asked when I read one of the stories, ‘A Tea Party’, at Seasonally Effected in Rochester: “Is that you; did that happen?” The story is in the voice of a child who tries to make sense of meeting her father’s misstress by acting it out in the form of a tea party with her toys. Was that me? I was given a tea set by an Irish uncle; it was the best present I had ever had. I did used to buy sugar mice from a sweet shop called Stebbings, and suck all the sugar until only the string tail was left. I was one of five children, like the narrator of the story. But the children in these stories are not my brothers and sisters. The parents in the stories are not my parents. My father did many things but, to my knowledge, he did not have an affair.
So, if people ask if these stories are true, I’ll say, ‘Yes, I had a Saturday job working on the sweet counter at Woolworth’s’, or ‘I did look with envy on my best friend’s Russian Dolls’, or ‘I did have a holiday romance with a boy in Ireland’, but the rest is imagination.
Here’s another for the Friends’ Gallery, my mission to get photos taken with as many of my friends as possible in 2014. This is me with Sam Pengelly, my hairdresser. I believe that a woman’s relationship with her hairdresser is an intimate one – Sam and I know quite a lot about each other. We laugh a lot together. And when I once burst into tears when Sam asked how I was, she held my hand and said, ‘I’m not just your hairdresser, I’m your friend.’ Sam more than qualifies for my Friends’ Gallery.
Maria and Sam
