Niamh Campbell

Non-Fiction Shorts
Review of the 2nd issue of Tolka Journal (December, 2021)

I was lucky enough to discover Tolka Journal from its very first issue. The variety of topics and story styles impressed me quite a bit and I subscribed to further issues immediately. This second outing stretches the boundaries of 'non-fiction' formats even further with such examples as telling a story via game play rules, prose poems and some imagined events (which definitely come across more as fiction). I enjoyed it quite a lot even if some of the themes were rather abstract and verged on experimental writing.

1. How They Met Themselves by Niamh Campbell. A childhood memory of meeting a drunk vagrant is imagined as if it were a time travel meeting with an ancestor.
2. Conception by Brenda Romero. The procedure of fertility clinics in various jurisdictions are written out as if they were part of a board game played with 4-sided & 6-sided dice.
3. An interview with Claire-Louise Bennett by Jennifer Hodgson. Interview questions related to the publication of "Checkout 19" (UK August 2021, USA March 2022).
4. Some Say the Devil Is Dead by Nidhi Zakaria Eipe. Describing the controversies surrounding Roberto Cuoghi's Pazuzu (Italy, 2008) sculpture of an Assyrian demon god and of Aidan Harte's Púca (Irish for spirit) (Ireland, 2021) sculpture commissioned by Ennistymon, County Clare, Ireland but rejected because of its 'grotesque' nature.

See photograph at https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E1LJeWCXsAEHuVy?format=jpg&name=large
Photograph of the artist Aidan Harte and his sculpture. Image sourced from Twitter.

This article also had interesting information which was new to me about the origin of the word grotesque which is from 'grottesca' (Italian: from the cave, from the grotto) used to describe paintings on the walls of the basement of an unfinished palace of the Emperor Nero.
5. A Swiftish Life by Steven Methven. Observation of the migration of swifts to Leipzig, Germany with the interposed true life story of Sarah Ann Henley (1862-1948) who survived a suicide jump off a bridge in Bristol in 1885 as the air currents lifted her up due to her crinoline dress and helped slow her fall like a parachute.
6. Brave in Bed by Brecken Hancock. The author spends a sleepless night while looking at their smartphone and fixating on stories about a condemned criminal who donated his body to science.
7. Club Oblivion by Liam Cagney. Reporting on the closing night party at the Cocktail d'Amore nightclub in Griessmühle, Berlin. The author has previously written about the club's 10th year anniversary in The Guardian December 10, 2019.
8. Sister; Worm by Saskia McCracken. The author works as a volunteer sorter for entries to an Arts Award competition for prison inmates while pondering the activities of earthworms.
9. Quartet by Sonya Gildea. An abstract stream-of-consciousness prose poem in 4 parts with a Coda. This one was difficult to follow but did seem to centre around visits to a bedside.
10. From The Ninety-Nine Names of Those I Love the Most: Four Dagli From Saudi Arabia by Stefani J. Alvarez translated from the original Filipino language by Alton Melvar M. Dapanas. The introductory note about the difficulties of translation was interesting. The very short stories (given in both Filipino and English) about an affair with a Saudi were not.
11. Jeff Bezos Talks to God by Róisín Kiberd. This one starts to enter into the fictional realm. Jeff Bezos' 11 minute sub-orbital space flight of July 20, 2021 is described and imagined as him seeking to talk to God.
12. These Mutilated Angels by Lydia Hounat. Walking home in the very early morning hours with an homage to the ambient electronic music of Burial's Ashtray Wasp.

Trivia and Link
Tolka Journal are currently accepting submissions for the 3rd Issue which is expected to be published in Spring, 2022. The deadline for submission is Thursday January 27, 2022 and submissions can be made at their website here.

I edited my review of Tolka Journal Issue 1 in order to add links to some of the non-fiction stories that they have now made available to read online.… (meer)

On the surface, this novel seems like it would not be up my alley at all. It has several features that have put me off other recently-published books by Irish authors: a nervy, precocious heroine who is conspicuously described as being thin and not eating much, a limited number of characters who are all highly educated and neurotic, a 2010s-Ireland setting. But those reservations disappeared once I got into the book. Like a couple of more famous examples of books of this type, the narrative examines social class and power dynamics in relationships, but with a seriousness and intelligence sorely lacking from the more-hyped examples.

This book actually engages with the issue of social class in Ireland and how it relates to this country's specific history. Alannah, the heroine, and her husband are specific people from specific places and contexts, and the different ways they approach and see the world are described and portrayed with real depth and understanding. Alannah is not just Irish, in a generic, vague way easily digestible by other Anglophone audiences, but specifically from somewhere around the Louth/Meath border, and this is conveyed without needing to name any particular towns or regions. The social context of her "castle Catholic" husband is equally fluently evoked. This requires a quality of observation and ability to elegantly fold these "tells" into the narrative that far exceeds anything I've read in the other books that this novel is often lumped in with. The flashback relationship between a younger Alannah and the English film director Harry provides a framework to subtly explore the uneasy intimacy between England and Ireland, without being in any way heavy-handed.

But explorations of class and nationality are not at the heart of this novel, despite being a significant part of it. The story, such as it is, focuses on the almost religious power of memory. Alannah is frequently taken out of her (fairly neurotic) head by something that reminds her of the intense few weeks she spent with Harry in a rural cottage in her home county many years before. Be it a sight, a sound or a smell, the function of these triggers is to override Alannah's analytic functions and send her into an irresistible reverie. Some other reviewers here disliked the writing style - I think it's beautifully written and very moving. The power of memory can send us into verbose flights of fancy, even while we try and remain objective about the reality of our pasts. The first-person narration provides a sense of intimacy, as Alannah tries to reckon with the past flooding into her mind and body, with all the overwhelming power of nostalgia.

In general, I appreciated the writing style. It is quite elaborate in parts, but I never felt that the author was losing control of her material. The descriptions of the natural world, the fields and forest near Harry's cottage, and the uncanny atmosphere in the landlady's house are vivid and compelling. The Dublin-set scenes evoke the actual city as I remember it, always remembering that it is beside the sea - an evocation that links up with descriptions of the same Irish Sea coast near Harry's cottage, in the region Alannah comes from. In general, I am not particularly impressed by the style of writing lauded by critics as "pared-down" - I believe it takes a lot more skill to write expansively, elaborately and even, dare I say, emotionally, which Campbell succeeds wonderfully in doing.

I'll finish this review with a quotation of one of my favourite passages (there are so many!) that, for me, sum up the combination of lovely language and intellectual seriousness that I found so absorbing in this novel. Five stars.

We walked to the coast road and the Irish Sea. I've known that water all my life. It's a filthy sea, a mutinously fuming sea of fungal colour and gull colonies; a trade sea, a snot-green sea. It is different to the Atlantic, an ocean of utopias: the Irish Sea exists to ship cargo and kill. Its coastline is the waste of Empire.

Amidst smashed public baths and piers, slipways and little castellated guest houses, smooth alcoves in harbour walls, one almost hears the phantom cranking of a music-box, the sailor's hornpipe, the departed carnival. England has eternally just pulled out of the place.


… (meer)