Quickly, While They Still Have Horses by Jan Carson
'Quickly, While They Still Have Horses' by Jan Carson is a collection of 16 short stories, all set in the North of Ireland. I really enjoyed the inventiveness and imagination of her previous books, so was looking forward to reading this.
North of Ireland
There's a lot of focus on the North of Ireland in the news cycle at present. There hasn't been a government for two years because one of the parties didn't get their own way so pulled out of shared authority. The result has been the collapse of the health services, public services crumbling, and strike action because there's no one willing to pay the workers a wage they can live on. This is the glum reality of the place.
It mostly feels like a forgotten backwater. Some of the 'politicians' and media would make you believe that other governments cared about it. They don't. Like the majority of the people, they just want to see a stable governance. The peace process was 25 years ago. The rest of the world has moved on, as have the folk who are sick to the back teeth of the intransigence of some of these politicians. Anyone with an interest in the place will know exactly who I'm referring to. I'm too bored of it to go into details.
Fair Play
What other people think about the place is the focus of a couple of stories in this collection. There's the English parent in 'Fair Play' set in a Belfast adventure playground, unimpressed with his wife's 'mid-ulster drawl'. He's not a fan of Belfast, which isn't as cosmopolitan as London, the old people are all 'born agains' and the place is full of deviant rule breakers. This story is a funny one with an ending that had me perplexed. You're never on firm ground with Jan Carson, and for me, this is very much a good thing.
Riots are about the only time Journalists venture over to the North, as is the case in 'Most People Just Throw Bricks' when a baby doll thrown over a peace line makes the mainstream newspapers. The boyfriend bringing his Spanish girlfriend over from England to see a strange exhibit in the book's title story is anxious about what she'll think. He's right, as she thinks the people looked like 'potatoes round the face, all pasty-skinned and lumpy'. Even the rain disappoints her. The weather also takes a turn during 'In the car with the rain coming down' as the author really captures those bristling family tensions as they eat a picnic out the back of a car.
Firestarters and The Raptures
I've been a fan of Jan Carson since I first read 'The Firestarters and then 'The Raptures’ in 2022. Those books are also very much rooted in the north but there's a fantastical element to them. I find her writing vivid and inventive, and her stories often put me in that space where I'm trying to make sense of them in my head, but not sure if I can, or sometimes even meant to. It's a place as a reader I really like to be in.
'The troubles' makes an appearance in 'Grand So' when a previous car owner refuses to budge from the back seat of his 1982 Sierra. This is a cause of concern for the young girl in the passenger seat, as she's the only one who can see him. This is only the time the collection travels out of County Antrim, venturing south to 'bandit country'.
Faith is another theme and appears in stories such as 'Troubling the Water' set in Templemore baths, and 'Tinged' when faith healing is ok with animals but not humans. It was hard not to think of the black mirror when reading 'Pillars.'
Identity and Tradition
And of course, identity is contested in the north, a theme explored in 'One Hander.' Laura opens the fridge door to find a severed hand on the shelf where she keeps her cheese and margarine. This one is about the legacy of family history from the conflict, and how you can't escape it. Laura can't be any clearer; 'The North would be much improved if the flags and symbols disappeared.' This one captures typical elements of Carson's writing - the absurd and fantastical, mixed with recurring realities of life in the North, where the past weighs heavy upon the present.
The majority of the stories are set in what would be to me the 'other' tradition. Some of the characters refer to 'the mainland', always a giveaway. There's the 'smells and bells' nonsense of mass, and Irish is a 'slippery, tingling kind of talk.' One character is 'the other sort' from the 'Free state'. Carson does such a good job of capturing the suspicion and mistrust in everyday terms and language. It's never far away.
Of course, as in any collection, I have a couple of favourites. 'Jellyfish' is about a woman dealing with her broken husband and the grief they share. This one crept up on me a bit and caught me unaware, I found it both odd and moving. And I really liked 'Caravan' which is set in one of those endless summers you experienced as a child when you needed a project to absorb you. It also looks at that moment when you begin to consider your parents as fallible beings, and they slip from the pedestal you'd placed them upon. Of course, I knew this from 'The Raptures,' but Carson captures those coming-of-age moments so well.
Speaking of caravans, there's a static one in 'Victor Soda' that both the wee girl telling the story and the reader approach with trepidation. There's an uneasiness to some of the stories, and I'm thinking about those that bookend the collection, such as the openers 'A Certain Degree of Ownership' and 'Family Circle' as they both involve small children. There's a darkness there, an uncomfortable feeling. I liked how Carson imbues some of her stories with an underlying anxiety, taking the reader to places they'd prefer not to be.
Short Storys
I don't read enough short story collections, something I decided to rectify with my reading challenge. I'd sit down and decide I was only reading one from this collection, but it was too easy to say 'ach I'll have one more,' like a packet of my favourite biscuits. Other times there were stories with a darker edge, or left me slightly confused and not sure how I felt, and I had to put the book down and let it linger. I'm perfectly fine with both of these outcomes.
It's a tribute to the skill of Jan Carson that when you start a story, you really don't know which way it's going. Lots of themes are explored that are central to life in the North and the author has such a rich imagination, and I was happy to spend time in these worlds and with the characters. There's a lot of humour throughout and I found a couple of the stories moving. It's obviously a form that Carson excels at - I always felt that she had complete control of these stories and knew exactly where she was taking the reader. I was happy to go there.
Summary
Being from the North, many of these people, places, and themes were familiar to me. But there's another world here beneath the surface, just out of reach - shadier, fanciful recesses. Jan Carson takes the glum reality of the place and injects it with the fantastical. Sometimes dark, quirky, occasionally absurd, and always inventive and readable, there's a great range of stories in this fine collection from one of my favourite modern Irish writers.
Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for the Advanced Reader Copy.
April 4, 2024 by Doubleday