‘Blank Pages’ by Bernard MacLaverty, stories (2021) – 259 pages

Since this is ‘Blank Pages’, it was a very quick read. Just kidding.

I had the good luck, though not actually good luck since I do pay attention to what’s going on in the world of fiction, to discover Bernard MacLaverty quite early in his career in the early 1980s. At that point, he had written two novellas, ‘Cal’ and ‘Lamb’, and only two collections of stories. I have been keeping up with his work ever since.

His latest collection of stories, ‘Blank Pages’ is another winner as his collections of stories usually are.

In these stories, MacLaverty captures the poignancy of everyday routine domestic life. Most of these stories take place or at least start out in the home, usually in Ireland or Scotland. His characters frequently live alone or with one close relative in an often seedy apartment. MacLaverty has always been able to find the pathos and feeling without resorting to wild plots or flashy techniques.

In ‘The Fairly Good Samaritan’, a man in his fifties spends most of his days and nights drinking at the bar or in his room. Here his landlady talks to him:

“You need someone to help you mend your ways, m’boy.”

“I’m much too old to change now.”

“It matters not how crooked the hook, the picture can be hung straight.”

That’s the kind of stuff she comes out with all the time. When the lecturing starts, he always nods his head and stares vaguely in the direction of the window.

In the story the man comes back from the bar to find her lying on the floor. Drunk as he is, he saves her life.

Many of these stories manage to deal with mortality without becoming morbid. The final story is about a man escaping almost certain death. Yet the stories are quite sociable with a lot of dialogue.

In MacLaverty’s previous novella called ‘Midwinter Break’, I was somewhat overwhelmed by the mundane circumstances of the few characters, and I downgraded it for that reason. However, here, with 12 different stories and different characters in each story, I feel MacLaverty is just sketching ordinary plain life as it is lived. With the everydayness spread and dispersed over so many different stories and characters and each separate story so moving, it presented no problem at all in this excellent collection.

My favorite story in the ‘Blank Pages’ collection is the first story, “A Love Picture”. Nothing is more unexpected or moving than a small act of kindness given by one person to another person.

Grade:   A