Watching for the Swallows by Mary O’Brien

In the introduction to her selection for The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story (Granta Books, 2010)  Anne Enright opined that whereas a novel is probably written for our satisfaction this might not be the case with the short story. Short stories, she said, are  ‘the cats of literary form; beautiful, but a little too self-contained for some readers’ tastes.’

Being familiar with cat behaviour myself, this struck me as a brilliant and illuminating comparison. Our own once resident feline, the late Mose, (Moses), as well as having pretentions towards keyboard surfing, certainly showed this self-contained trait. Being stroked was all very well but often as not, the purring would stop suddenly. Then, without as much as one grateful glance in your direction there was the quick pounce down from your lap and with the tabby tail extended to neutral, the head-high march off towards the door. Indeed, this independent streak is also evident in our present visiting cat. They (He? She?) can drop in on a round of the neighbourhood, eat well from the bowl permanently nprovided in our porch and then, totally ignoring your presence and beneficence, turn abruptly on their paws and head off to the next feeding station. This seemingly innate attribute which, as Anne Enright has suggested, is also found in the short story, can be just a little tooannoyingly independent and self-contained even for confessed cat lovers.

My collection here includes a short novella. Hopefully this will provide some modicum of satisfaction for the reader. As for the short stories, well ….  good luck. Miaow!  – Mary O’Brien.