Shine/Variance
Stephen Walsh
"Great, beautiful little studies of unspoken fear and longing and love, told with a sure-footed delicacy rare in a debut" Sarah Moss, Irish Times
"An exciting, original, and very welcome new voice" Donal Ryan
"These are startling, adventurous and often wonderful stories. I loved this collection" Roddy Doyle
A sharp and insightful debut short story collection about the pitfalls of ordinary life
A wife yearns to escape the tight-fisted confines of a package holiday. A boy dreams of footballing greatness as his mother mourns a loss. A man tries to assemble an absent child's playhouse, with impossible instructions and too much beer. A woman seeks clarity from automated voices. A father is distracted from Christmas tree shopping with his son by the looming pressure of quarterly sales targets.
Shine/Variance captures the tiny crises and wonders of daily life with warmth, wit and decisive clarity. Ordinary people - commuters, call centre workers, children and parents - struggle for stability while craving more, and the schism between expectation and reality is only rarely bridged. Yet, amidst the faltering, recognition and bright moments of hope still illuminate their days.
Fresh, tender and darkly funny, these stories are a window into the longings, frustrations and painfully human connections of ordinary life from a remarkable new voice in fiction.
"The most powerful new collection I've read in some years" John Boyne
"Brilliantly bats, staggeringly compelling, and ferociously funny. Stephen Walsh rips the concreteness of reality straight from us and reflects back a more wobbly version of our turbulent lives... Completely unique" June Caldwell
"Full of assured originality and freshness - a new writer much to be welcomed" Bernard MacLaverty
Product Details
About Stephen Walsh
Reviews for Shine/Variance
Sarah Moss
Irish Times
These are startling, adventurous and often wonderful stories. I loved this collection
Roddy Doyle Immensely readable... the collection's sharpness, poetics and wit make for an immensely pleasurable read... [Walsh] looks to be a writer of great promise
Niamh Donnelly
Irish Independent
Stephen Walsh writes of the complexities of family life with insight and humour. The most powerful new collection I've read in some years
John Boyne Hugely original... I loved these zany, thought provoking stories and felt empathy with most of the protagonists
Sue Leonard
Irish Examiner
An exciting, original, and very welcome new voice. Stephen Walsh draws unexpected beauty from the familiar, the tragic, the darkly comic situations any of us could find ourselves in, composing perfect little symphonies from the haphazard chords of existence. He is a witty, insightful and very skilled writer, and the voices in this collection sing from the page
Donal Ryan Each of the stories packs a particular emotional punch but this is punctuated by humour... Shine/Variance is a hugely accomplished debut from a writer who sees beauty, struggle, and redemption in the everyday
Paul Ring
Irish Examiner
Heartbreakingly real characters dealing with everyday hurts and misunderstandings
Orna Mulcahy
The Gloss
Stephen Walsh's first collection is full of assured originality and freshness - a new writer much to be welcomed
Bernard MacLaverty Stephen Walsh's writing is at once original, sharp and funny. The richness of his insight and storytelling fits wonderfully into the breadth and depth of Irish writing today
Anne Griffin, author of When All Is Said