Fionnuala Carlin

Days of Wine and Rosaries is Fionnuala Carlin's debut collection of short stories, which range from inventive comic vignettes to evocative accounts of turmoil and loss.

Fionnuala guides the reader through the hilarious nightmare of a job interview gone wrong, the outrageous shenanigans of three elderly geriatric friends with a fondness for sherry, and the cynical antics of a professional photographer with an attitude problem.

Interspersing these whimsical sketches are the moving stories of an emigrant son returned for his beloved father's requiem, the agonising search of a daughter for a mother she'd thought long dead, and the dramatic redemption of a disgraced surgeon. These and other stories are written with a rare grace. The narrative is by turns gentle and elegant, dark and moody, hopeful and despairing, raucous and droll – but always rewarding and satisfying.

Fionnuala on the BBC Radio Foyle Eamon Friel Show, 30 May 2009

ISBN 978 1 906271 20 6
Published in May 2009, 116pp, 125mm x 197mm (tall)