Following on from the publication of her recent novel The Raptures, she returns with a new collection of short stories called Quickly, While They Still Have Horses. The collection is an exploration of all aspects of life, from childhood to middle-age, grief to falling in love, parenthood to loss, all told with Carson’s trademark empathy, humour and striking imagination.
In these sixteen stories, Carson introduces us to worlds and characters that feel real and recognisable. Her characters are in the midst of losing faith, either in themselves or in other people and are facing up to the daily disappointments that make up their lives. Carson deftly balances the mundanity of the everyday with a spark of her trademark magic realism or a sliver of dark humour to elevate these stories to something very special and providing readers new to her work with a great introduction to her style.
Carson has never been afraid to go to dark places in her work. This collection features several children who are dealing with the death of parents, such as Ruth in ‘Tinged’ whose raw grief following the death of her mother is hardening into anger towards her father.
Two stories, ‘Family Circle’ and ‘A Certain Degree of Ownership’ feature babies who drown and deal with the notion of responsibility or the avoidance of responsibility. The narrator of ‘A Certain Degree of Ownership’ dislikes the parents of the baby on the beach on sight as such doesn’t feel the need to intervene when she sees their child is in danger. The two brothers in ‘Family Circle’ are so caught up in their hatred for one another that they don’t take the safety of the baby floating in the river into consideration at all.
Carson’s writing is rooted in absurdist literature and the genre of magic realism which brings a levity to her darker themes. In the culture of Northern Ireland there is also a tendency to use humour as a means of deflection and Carson uses a blend of humour and fantastical elements to ask the reader to look at a piece of history or aspect of culture they are familiar with in a fresh way which is invaluable.
In the surprisingly moving ‘Bat McElhatton Learns to Drive’, a blind man plays a trick on his friend, telling him that his sight has returned and asking him for driving lessons. Such is his friend’s faith in him, he finds himself uplifted and comes to believe that he can indeed drive, both supporting the other even at the risk to their own safety.
Now, here’s Slim telling Bat he can drive; urging him to get a move on. There’s so much he has to learn: three-point turns and parallel parking, reversing round a corner on a hill. It’ll not be easy, but he knows he can do it as long as Slim keeps saying he can.
‘Coasters (After John Hewitt)’ takes the recognisable world of the garden centre and uses it to explore the boredom and predictability at the heart of the life of a retired dentist who takes advantage of a medical emergency to get some precious time to himself. In ‘Troubling the Waters’, Carson perfectly captures the foibles and exploits of a group of elderly knitters, whose ruthlessness comes to the fore when there is the possibility of a cure for their ills on offer.
Carson often uses magic realism as a lever to open up the reality of a situation and it is again used to great effect in this new collection. A highlight is the 1980s-set story ‘Grand So’, in which a young girl called Ruth must share the back seat of her grandmother’s car with the ghost of its former owner, who only breaks his ongoing silence to warn her when danger is approaching.
Inventiveness is juxtaposed with thoughtfulness in ‘Pillars’ in which depressed or struggling people can purchase a pillar (of smoke during the day and fire at night) which will lead them to make the best decisions for their own wellbeing. Elaine has been struggling since her partner left her and when she is gifted a pillar, she overcomes her initial discomfort to embrace a new way of life. When she finds out that the pillar was, in fact, ordered by her ex-partner, it gives her a new perspective on the end of their relationship.
In the title story, horses across the world are disappearing and no explanation or reasoning is given. When a man and his forceful Spanish girlfriend travel to Belfast to see one of the last remaining horses, expectation is greater than reality. Inexplicable events also feature in the more sinister ‘Fair Play. An uptight father wants to prove to his wife that he can look after their sons, so takes them to a soft play centre for the afternoon. The usual horrors of such a place = noise, germs, other people – pale into insignificance when his children go down a tube slide and don’t come out at the bottom.
Quickly While They Still Have Horses is a vibrant, imaginative and impressive collection of short stories that doesn’t ask the reader to believe in miracles so much as to jump into this magical world and go where it takes you. It features some of Carson’s best writing to date. Her balance of themes and genres, the unsettling and the recognisable, and her depth of characterisation make for an incredibly strong collection.