Tales from the Poorhouse

Book excerpt: This book consists of a remarkable suite of four monologues: "The Orphan", "The Master", "The Landlord", and "The Mother". They place in counterpoint, the stories of a mother and her daughter, a landlord, and the Master of a workhouse in mid-19th century Ireland. In the immediate aftermath of the "hard hunger", and against the backdrop of other miseries -- an American Wake, poverty, deaths in childbearing -- Eugene McCabe relates memories, confessions, and apologies. Through nimble shifts of time, perspective, and voices, he reveals why he is celebrated as a chronicler of complex historical predicaments and the details of social nuance. In this memorable fiction, his imagination and narrative artistry are at their most vital.