Review by Booklist Review
Death dangles over many of the dozen stories in MacLaverty's latest collection, following his novel, Midwinter Break (2017). Populated primarily by characters who have experienced loss and grief, one unifying theme is crisply conveyed: "Fear shared was fear reduced." Family, aging, and futility are also explored. Story lines include a writer who must have his sick cat euthanized, a "catastrophizing" grandfather who can't locate the grandkids under his care, and a sculptor's assistant who must fashion a death mask during the night. Set during WWII, "Blackthorns" costars an American army doctor and the local country doctor collaborating to save the life of a townsman critically ill with blood poisoning. Although their patient recovers, the physicians themselves remain infected, albeit with blatant bigotry. "The End of Days" is an emotionally crushing tour de force. In 1918 Vienna, an artist tenderly cares for his pregnant wife suffering from the Spanish flu, even as he, too, becomes very ill. Tragically, he hurries to make multiple sketches of his spouse, aware of, "Her body being both cradle and coffin, within a minute."
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The 12 stories in this poignant, understated collection by Irish author MacLaverty (Lamb) direct a keen and compassionate eye toward characters who are approaching death. The dreamy "Glasshouses" follows an unnamed old man who loses track of his grandchildren as they visit a large conservatory divided into various climate zones. He wanders alone and afraid, and possibly suffers a heart attack while "searching throughout the world" for the children he fears may have come to harm. In the touching "Sounds and Sweet Airs," an elderly couple takes a stormy ferry ride from Ireland to Scotland, during which they strike up a friendship with a young harp-toting woman named Lisa Boyd. Lisa brought the harp to play for her invalid father in Scotland, and after the couple persuades her to play it on board, it seems to calm both the sea and the anxious people on board. MacLaverty's tour de force is the heartbreaking "The End of Days: Vienna 1918," in which artist Egon Schiele and his pregnant wife are felled by influenza, with parallels to a more recent pandemic both clear and devastating. MacLaverty's tales come across as deceptively light at first, but they leave a lasting impression. (Jan.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
The first and last selections in this collection from Booker short-listed Irish writer MacLaverty (Grace Notes; The Anatomy School) take place in Northern Ireland during World War II. Both stories, along with those they bookend, reveal something miraculous in the midst of despair and tragedy. MacLaverty presents variations on this idea in stories set in various moments and places, reinforcing the connections between them with recurring themes and images. The lengthiest tale, "The End of Days: Vienna 1918," imagines the final days of Egon and Edith Schiele, both of whom died during the 1918 flu pandemic. In this story and others, MacLaverty evokes contemporary crises through events set in the past, including climate change and the plagues of autocracy and disease. Each selection centers on relationships somehow disrupted by change: death, an accident, surgery, negligence. Relations between elderly parents and adult children provide the plots for many of these stories, a dynamic MacLaverty portrays with tenderness. VERDICT The 12 stories that make up MacLaverty's seventh collection emphasize his mastery of image, characterization, and dialogue. He remains one of the most graceful storytellers in modern literature.--John G. Matthews
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Aging, illness, and death provide the recurring chords in this satisfying concerto of new stories. A blocked writer finds a use for blank typing paper by laying it on his carpet to check for fleas, but he soon turns to dealing with his late wife's ailing cat. When a strange noise disturbs a woman, she notices many daddy longlegs in her house before going out to find her wandering, dementia-suffering mother. In 1940, a mother hears that her son, presumed dead after his ship recently was torpedoed, may be visible in a newsreel featuring survivors. In his sixth collection, the 79-year-old, Belfast-born MacLaverty brings humor, sympathy, and an unshowy eloquence to the conventional short story. He knows what disquiets the aging--the strange noises that jar a home's familiar silence; the suddenly absent grandchild--and the anxieties of those with an elderly parent. Returning to his hometown for a business meeting, a man worries about his mother's increasing distractedness and about getting credit for being a good son. A woman shleps her harp back home to entertain her crippled father and then plays for passengers on the return ferry. (MacLaverty doesn't shy from big symbols like a harp in an Irish setting.) One of the four stories with historical settings, and the collection's standout, is "The End of Days: Vienna 1918," in which the artist Egon Schiele cares for his pregnant wife as she lies dying from Spanish flu. MacLaverty's mastery is evident throughout, in carefully chosen details, in the way he illuminates the inescapable need to create that compels Schiele to sketch the corpse, and in the framing of the story with two different keyhole references--alluding perhaps to the voyeurism of Schiele's own art and the story's invasion of his private suffering. A fine collection by a true craftsman, thematically rich and deeply humane. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
