The Meat Eaters By Michael Collins

Meat eater free episodes

Michael Collins s stories are about Ireland about the Irish as they are and as they would like to be imagined In the title story we see the fatal consequences of self deception Posing as a nationalist hero a young man travels to America with a suitcase full of meat The warm welcome he expects swiftly dematerialises as he awakes to the grim realities of life in hiding The vivid surreal splendour of the writing allied with images of real people the struggling widow the careless father the schoolboy and the philosopher the good and the corrupt make this an outstanding collection The Meat Eaters Librarian Note There is than one author in the GoodReads database with this name site_link See this thread for information 1 Irish Novelist Michael Collins was born in 1964 He was educated in Belfast Dublin and Chicago His short stories have been awarded the Hennessy Sunday Tribune Award in Ireland and the Pushcart Prize in America Librarian Note There is than one author in the GoodReads database with this name site_link See this thread for information 1 Irish Novelist Michael Collins was born in 1964 He was educated in Belfast Dublin and Chicago His short stories have been awarded the Hennessy Sunday Tribune Award in Ireland and the Pushcart Prize in America site_link The stories were all fairly easy to get into but some of the monologues rambled a bit The prose was very good but the dialogue occasionally seemed a bit thin All of the stories were fairly dark unpleasant or sad None of the stories ended happily One story contained a very graphic description of a man being tortured and killed which made me feel physically sick and wish that there were violence warnings on books The Meat Eaters James Joyce described Ireland as the old sow that eats its farrow and in this collection of short stories Michael Collins explodes every romantic green tinged myth about the oul sod Every cliche is fair game to a satirical expose which is so raw and razor sharp it draws blood We read of corrupt and murderous Irish Americans The meat eaters botched IRA bombing missions and their consequences The butcher s daughter Atlantic coast cottage society The man who dreamt of lobsters and a dark Dubliners pastiche The Enemy The theme of butchers and butchery pervades every story reaching an apogee of almost unreadable violence in The Dead the story of a Republican punishment squad s treatment of a suspected informer and traitor A further theme which pervades every story is that of the corruption of youth by older men and women There are almost no sympathetic adult characters in the collection all of whom pass on their failings and inadequacies to the next generation A bleak black collection then where any laughs are those with which we attempt to ward off horror The Meat Eaters Not bad Not great either The Meat Eaters Safe to assume this collection of short stories is not endorsed by the Irish Tourist Board Collins is a fine writer drawn to the grim side of life He finds plenty of that to showcase in his home country Gangsters negligent fathers suicide bombers abused women a minor league drug peddler in trouble with his bosses a crippled adolescent humiliated by his peers and IRA punishment killing a loner shop assistant walking the nighttime streets of Dublin and a paedophile What s not to love about the land of saints and scholars Vivid prose often close to sickeningly so and suffering spelt out so clearly it is hard not to respond emotionally The Meat Eaters