The News from Dublin: Stories

The protagonists of these finely crafted stories from Tóibín (Long Island) reflect on their lives and how they wound up where they are. For the aging Irish narrator and his younger Jewish American lover in “Sleep,” it was “Germany, Ireland, the internet, gay rights, Judaism, Catholicism: they have all brought us here. To this room, to this bed in America.” In “The Journey to Galway,” an Irishwoman grapples with grief in the wake of WWII. The story begins with the unnamed woman noting an “unusual silence,” and her tale comprises painful recollections of those she lost in the war. “A Free Man” follows Joe, a failed Maynooth pontifical student and former math teacher, from Ireland to Barcelona, where he hopes to start a new life following a lengthy prison term for molesting teen boys. “The Catalan Girls,” a novella, centers on discreet and resolute Montse, who, as a 10-year-old, migrates with her mother and elder sisters Conxita and Núria (“the rude one”) from Spain to Argentina only to return 50 years later. The quiet humanity of Tóibín’s characters is as arresting as his knack for rendering relationships and place. This collection offers much to admire. Agent: Peter Straus, RCW Literary. (Mar.)