Twenty-Twenty Vision by Mary Morrissy – in conversation with Bryan Quinn

Mary Morrissy is an award-winning Irish novelist and short story writer, the author of four novels as well as two collections of short stories. She has 20 years’ experience of teaching creating writing in the US and Ireland and was previously the associate director of creative writing at University College Cork.

‘Sharp, pitiless and heartbreaking … a marvellous book.’ – CARLO GÉBLER

‘Mary Morrissy [is] one of the brightest, most original stars in the firmament of Irish
writing.’ – NUALA O’CONNOR

‘Mary Morrissy always writes with great insight, deep humanity and an oftentimes acerbic eye … I challenge you not to see something of yourself reflected here.’ – JAN CARSON

‘I adore Mary Morrissy’s stories. Fresh, deft, succinct, each one is like a dart to the heart.’ – LUCY CALDWELL

‘Get yourself free, girl, Adrienne thought. “No one died of a break-up,” she said instead. Not true, a voice inside her insisted, but she tamped it down. Now was not the time.’ Christine Beckett is faced with some home truths when her best friend, suffering from dementia, decides after a lifetime to be honest with her; Olivia Fletcher has an epiphany at a vaccination centre about a man who has loved her for decades; Bernard Travers revisits an unlikely romantic interlude with the mother of his teenage pen pal that has sustained him for 40 years.

Bailiúchá de scéalta go bhfuil nascanna éagsúla eatarthu, Twenty-Twenty Vision forms a tapestry of middle age regret, hindsight, romance, death and lost love. Full of wit, hope and devastation, this collection from one of Ireland’s sharpest writers is not to be missed.