cover image A Dream Woke Me and Other Stories

A Dream Woke Me and Other Stories

Marilyn McLaughlin. Blackstaff Press, $14.95 (136pp) ISBN 978-0-85640-644-7

Rich in fragmented, evocative dream imagery, these 14 introspective stories by a new Irish writer focus mainly on the lives of women, from the unfulfilled hopes of the spinster aunts featured in ""The Sewing Box"" to the unspoken satisfactions of the elderly longtime married couple in ""Honeysuckle."" Both the title tale and ""Pilgrim"" tell of women finally coming to terms with, then healing from, the death of a first love; in the poignant ""Ghosts,"" the central death is that of a young mother who haunts her old home until her widowed husband and two small children are able to find the comfort they need in one another. Many of the stories are set in small villages located along the beautiful, desolate Irish coast, where elderly women on their own are sometimes granted a sort of mythic status, whether by children, as in ""Bridie Birdie,"" or by the village as a whole, as in the fairytale-like ""Witchwoman."" The rapport between elderly women and young girls is exquisitely detailed in ""Aspects,"" the longest story in the collection and one of the best. The clever ""Oh Susannah"" is also a winner, in which a calm woman remains oblivious to the competitive neighbor who is her rival for a bachelor's affections, and ends up better off without the man. McLaughlin's gentle prose shares much with Susannah's lucid, placid attitude; deceptively simple, its appeal lies in its sure, understated craftsmanship. (Mar.)