{"id":21,"date":"2010-06-22T04:18:55","date_gmt":"2010-06-22T03:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/evelynconlon.com\/"},"modified":"2020-07-18T16:01:30","modified_gmt":"2020-07-18T15:01:30","slug":"reviews","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/evelynconlon.com\/reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Reviews & Interviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\tReviews\n\t<\/h1>\n\t

Novels<\/h3>\n

\u201cConlon\u2019s prose is by turn poetic, acerbic, spare and beautifully descriptive. She wears her attention to detail and research as the lightest of cloaks, bringing to life the daily routine on board ship with moments of poignancy and humour.\u201d -Candida Baker, The Newtown Review of Books<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cDefiantly clear-sighted. Rigorously unsentimental. Time is man-handled. There are quite simply no boring bits\u201d –Independent <\/em>(London)<\/p>\n

\u201cConlon has the rare ability to give her words an almost mythic overtone without ever sounding forced\u201d –The Times <\/em>(London)<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is one of Ireland’s major truly creative writers\u201d –Books Ireland<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cEvelyn Conlon excels in exposing the dichotomy between public behaviour and private behaviour\u201d –Fortnight<\/em> magazine<\/p>\n

\u201cShe picks some of the threads from the fabric of love and examines them closely, refusing to take refuge in coyness or clich\u00e9\u201d –Irish Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026sharp sinuous writing, full of controlled anger and suddenly opened passion \u2026Committed writing, shot through with original thinking and surreal wit\u201d –The Scotsman<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIn her latest novel Conlon disrupts apparently calm, untroubled surfaces to pose some very complex questions\u201d –Irish Studies Review<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cA brilliant epistolary work suffusing a portrait of modern Dublin with the subtle wit of Clarissa\u201d –Kirkus Review<\/em>, USA<\/p>\n

\u201cHer characters are articulate, passionate and frequently funny. Her prose is a delight\u201d –Sunday Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cA genuinely exploratory writer, true to every kink which her imagination puts into her characters, her work is excitingly original\u201d –The Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMeticulously observant\u2026 Conlon writes with sane, sober wit; her lucid prose is pithy without falling into epigrams.\u201d –Publishers Weekly<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHighlights the exceptional and unfathomable depths of what we nonchalantly dismiss as the normal, the everyday\u2026 Conlon emerges as champion of the individual, the Everyman and the Everywoman\u201d –The Irish Times.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of Ireland\u2019s most distinctive and energetic voices\u201d –Feminist Bookstore News<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis moving novel confronts the experience of capital punishment. Through two continents and two generations Conlon traces the countenance of life and death and its so-called punishment, in a tale deftly told with revelation that startles with new insight\u201d –Sam Reese Sheppard.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/h4>\n

Short Stories<\/h4>\n

“Two More Gallants” – Evelyn Conlon’s short story published in\u00a0Dubliners 100<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>a collection of 15 new stories, each of which is a new take on James Joyce’s originals, commissioned to mark the 100th anniversary of the originals’ publication. Edited by Thomas Morris (Tramp Press<\/a>, Dublin, 2014).<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we were betting on the story Joyce would have liked most, my money would be on Evelyn Conlon’s version of ‘Two Gallants’ … Joyce said he thought it “one of the most important stories in the book. I would rather sacrifice five of the other stories (which I could name) than this one”. An account of swindlers cheating a maid out of her savings, it uses an actual theft as allegory for a political one: Ireland’s colonial servitude. Conlon’s version, about an academic stealing a colleague’s revelation about the skivvy Joyce supposedly got his story from, is itself an act of theft: its premise is lifted from a 1986 William Trevor story, “Two More Gallants”, which is also a response to Joyce. Conlon’s version, therefore, enacts the theft it portrays, and nests one plagiarism inside another\u2026\u201d Chris Power, The Guardian, <\/em>June 12, 2014.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"Evelyn\n\t

Review Articles<\/h2>\n

Skin of Dreams<\/a><\/h4>\n