Dermot Healy Boeken

"Dermot Healy wrote intricate and innovative short stories that, along with works by Neil Jordan and Desmond Hogan, relaunched the Irish short story tradition. Set in small-town Ireland and the equally suffocating confines of the Irish expat communities of 1970s London, Healy's stories show compassion toward the marginalized and the dispossessed. Gathering all of Healy's stories together for the first time, this collection includes the long prose-drama "Before the Off" and Healy's final short works, "Along the Lines" and "Images" --

In a wind-battered cottage in western Ireland, playwright Jack Ferris tries to salvage something from his broken love affair with actress Catherine Adams. Misunderstandings, alcohol, religious differences, and despair have driven them apart. When Jack recreates Catherine in his imagination, the two world's of Catholic and Protestant run together back to the present.

Ollie Ewing is recovering in his native Sligo as he contemplates the hell he experienced working in London. Sudden Times is a dark novel about life in London in the casual labour market with its protection rackets and sinister characters.

One day, years after he's moved away from his childhood home in rural Ireland, Dermot Healy returns to care for his ailing mother. his mother, whose stories young Dermot has heard so often that he believes they are his own;

Long Time, No See introduces us to the unforgettable world of Mister Psyche .In the isolated coastal townland of Ballintra in the Northwest of Ireland Recent school-leaver, occasional worker, full-time companion and Malibu-provider to Uncle Joe-Joe and his friend, The Blackbird, Psyche is a boy on the cusp of adulthood, undone by a recent traumatic event.Hanging out with men some forty-plus years his senior proves hazardous for Mister Psyche when the appearance of a bullet-hole in Uncle Joe-Joe's window draws him into a series of (mis)-adventures which unsettle and bemuse. Perhaps The Blackbird is losing it? Or perhaps The General has decided to act on a decades-old grudge? Whichever way, as the paranoia grabs a creeping hold of Uncle Joe-Joe, his fragile world threatens to collapse. And it is Mister Psyche who must digest this and acknowledge the new world taking shape in the old ...An epic in miniature peopled by a cast of innocents and broken misfits, Long Time, No See's lyrical power casts a miraculous literary spell.

"Originally co-published in 1984 by Allison & Busby and Brandon Books; a second edition was published in 1986 by Allison & Busby" -- Verso title page.

Although Dermot Healy (1947-2014) is probably best known as a novelist and poet, he was also a prolific playwright, screenwriter, and actor. Healy's interest in drama was long-standing, and was central to his development as a writer. Between 1985 and 2010 he wrote thirteen stage plays, all of which are gathered here for the first time.

»Das Wunderbare an diesem Roman ist seine allgegenwärtige Doppelbödigkeit. Hinter der realistischen Ebene öffnen sich immer wieder Blicke, die tief hineinführen ins verborgene Innenleben Irlands.« H. G. Pflaum in der ›Süddeutschen Zeitung‹ Jack Ferris steht auf der Brücke, die auf die irische Halbinsel Mullet führt, und wartet auf seine Geliebte Catherine. Aber Jack wartet vergeblich, und diese Enttäuschung verändert sein Leben dramatisch. Dermot Healy spiegelt in eindringlichen Bildern die Atmosphäre eines Landes, das an seinen inneren Konflikten leidet, und erzählt vom Ende einer großen Liebe.

Der Vater wartet nachts vorm Schlafzimmer ungeduldig auf die Niederkunft seiner Frau. Als nach Stunden nur noch laute Schnarchgeräusche zu hören sind, öffnet er die Tür: Neben seiner Frau liegt der Arzt im Bett, der im Bierrausch eingeschlafen ist. Der Vater muss mit dem Fahrrad eilig eine Freundin für die Geburtshilfe holen, denn der Doktor ist partout nicht wachzukriegen. So ist Dermot Healy nicht zur Welt gekommen - er glaubte es nur die längste Zeit. Familiengeschichten wurden im Haus der Healys so erzählt, dass jeder meinte, er sei dabei gewesen. In Wahrheit trug sich das Ereignis in der Nachbarschaft zu. "Dichtung beginnt im Haus einer Nachbarin"§, folgert Healy, und sie ist die große Schwester der Lüge. So ist es nur folgerichtig, wofür der Literat sein erstes Lob erntet - für einen Schulaufsatz, den er Wort für Wort abgeschrieben hat.