Set in the late 20th century Ireland, Treading The Uneven Road is a collection of nine inter-related short stories about a fictional Irish town located between on the road from Dublin to Sligo. The highway bypassed the village, leaving its residents and their businesses essentially lost to the modern world and suffering from lack of trade and lack of outside influences from tourists. Author L.M. Brown paints a vivid description of the town showing Faith’s bakery, the Dun Maeve pub, bridges, car repair shop, the quarry, Lavin’s Construction, the only phone booth in town, and a statue of the Virgin Mary looking skyward.
Through the nine stories, the reader becomes acquainted with the inhabitants of the village, and as the stories progress, the reader sees these characters through different points of view and at different stages of their lives.
My favorite story was the last with its skillful use of old fairy tales to highlight the life of Faith, the owner of the bakery/cafe.
Melancholy runs like a ribbon through these stories, as does (it seems strange to say this of a book filled with words) silence. These people are blunt, taciturn to a fault, even with loved ones. So quiet that what dialogue there is resonates. There’s a paucity of visible emotion, but underlying loneliness, rage, love, grief, depression. The desire to escape conflicts with the desire to remain. While many of the stories are sad, this is a strong collection which I’d wholeheartedly recommend. Read as a whole, these stories reveal much of human strengths and frailties.
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Treading the Uneven Road is available through Amazon.
