cover image A Glassful of Letters

A Glassful of Letters

Evelyn Conlon. Blackstaff Press, $16.95 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-85640-618-8

The contented life of an independent-minded Aer Lingus hostess--who stays in flight to avoid both exile and entrapment--contrasts with the bitter existences of men and women who live on the same street in Dublin. This meticulously observant second novel from Conlon (Stars in the Daytime) alternates between epistolary chapters and narratives in the first or third person. Conlon begins by introducing us to air hostess Helena, happy with her unromantic marriage and her one child, and her oppressed neighbor Connie, who groans under the weight of caring for three children and a boorish husband. When her life becomes overwhelmingly dismal, Connie begins writing to an Irish political prisoner, Senan. Her best friend, Fergal, footloose in America, at first disapproves, but the correspondence turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Conlon writes with sane, sober wit; her lucid prose is pithy without falling into epigrams. Although the alternation between present-tense letters and past-tense storytelling jars (and perhaps never quite pays for its showiness), her account of contemporary Ireland and the continuing Irish diaspora is sympathetic, well-measured and insightful. (Oct.)