9th August 2023
‘When I developed my illness and could no longer work, he took pity on me and gave me a room and an allowance.’
19th July 2023
‘In the early days, people told me my disease disgusted them. They didn’t say it in those words—they used phrases like ‘I hope this email finds you well,’ but the implications were clear enough.’
21st June 2023
A story from Mary O’Donoghue’s new collection, The Hour After Happy Hour.
1st March 2023
‘I have a habit of telling stories too fast, expecting a coherent narrative to spring up from a few words flimsily strung together on a string. The problem is words words words. The more neatly I arrange them, the more they lose their flavour.’
2nd February 2023
‘I remember my uncle cutting his toe nails with a razor blade. I remember my father drunk from Sunday to Sunday. There has to be a monument to the failures as well.’
14th December 2022
‘Something always came down like a guillotine to split her life in two, so that on one side was happiness, and on the other, the present.’
9th November 2022
‘This was in Montpellier, in 2012. He was a legionnaire from Birmingham; his reclaimed name was Roger, and he was the most intelligent murderer I have ever met.’
5th October 2022
‘In the hours and days after seeing Eugene, I was particularly bad: sobbing uncontrollably, vomiting, roaring into the hell’s bells of night. I prayed for typhus, Asiatic cholera, plain old consumption, anything that would do the job for me. I had no way to impart how terrible and terrified I felt except to write it down.’
7th September 2022
‘Her husband was asleep beside her, snoring gently, and she lay, breathing shallowly, planning her next move.’
10th August 2022
‘Marcello's not a guy who likes used underwear, old shoes or bare feet. He’s a perfectionist, or maybe just a hypocrite.’