Colm Tóibín’s new and challenging collection of stories paint rich and textured portraits of individuals at different pivotal moments in their lives. In each case, Tóibín shows how their relationship with either a mother or a son, or their relationship to their own role as mother or son, reveals something unique and important about them. The stories feature Ireland or Irish narrators, but they are also truly universal.

In ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ unwelcome memories are stirred when a mother, once a singer in an Irish folk-rock band of some popular renown in the 60s, finds that her son has been listening to their old records - songs she hoped never to hear again. In ‘Water’, a son buries his mother and goes out to a drug-fuelled rave on a remote beach outside Dublin. In the course of this one night his grief and desire for raw feeling combine with exquisite and devastating intensity.

At once beautifully playful, psychologically intricate, emotionally incisive, finely-wrought and fearless these stories tease out the delicate and difficult strands which are woven between mothers and sons. Sometimes shocking and always powerful, this masterful new collection confirms Tóibín as great prose stylist of our time.

Praise for The Master:

‘An audacious, profound, and wonderfully intelligent book’ Hermione Lee, Guardian

‘The Master is not short of a masterpiece’ Independent on Sunday

Print length

256 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Picador
Publication date

1 Sept. 2006
Dimensions

13.8 x 2.7 x 21.6 cm
ISBN-10

0330441825
ISBN-13

978-0330441827
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Product details

Publisher : Picador; Main Market edition (1 Sept. 2006)
Language : English
Hardcover : 256 pages
ISBN-10 : 0330441825
ISBN-13 : 978-0330441827
Dimensions : 13.8 x 2.7 x 21.6 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 846,116 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 26,417 in Short Stories (Books)
- 68,577 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- 80,517 in Contemporary Fiction (Books)

Customer reviews:
99 ratings

Product description

Review

'Bleak and beautiful tales of motherhood, motherland and
betrayal'
-- Books of the Year, Sunday Telegraph

'Clarity and beautifully nuanced precision create his artistic
distance sureness of touch' -- Spectator

'It may not be going too far to suggest Irish Fiction has found
its first Master of the new century -- Scotland on Sunday

'Tóibín is a writer of extraordinary emotional clarity...these are
beautiful stories, beautifully crafted' -- Kate Saunders, Literary Review

`All [the stories] share a miraculous density. Short but weighty,
they contain whole lives' -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Sunday Times

`Compelling... Tóibín is a master of the blind allies of desire...
Tóibín commands admiration and respect' -- The Times

`Moving... beautifully captured moments of longing and loss...
[Tóibín] is a subtle, intelligent and deeply felt writer' -- Guardian

`No one writes about loss like Tóibín' -- Time Out

Tóibín achieves his effects in scrupulously understated prose,
conveying psychological complexity in straightforward, very subtly rhythmic
language' -- Sunday Telegraph

Tóibíns prose, as dry and detached as ever...packs a powerful
emotional charge -- Daily Mail

Book Description

A collection of exquisite stories from Booker-shortlisted Colm Tóibín

5 star		61%
4 star		24%
3 star		7%
2 star		3%
1 star		5%

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

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Charlie's Mum

Very good short stories - not to be missed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 July 2017

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How is it that so many Irish writers are simply fantastic? (I'm not Irish, so not biased) Especially their short stories!
I love a GOOD short story with an ending that doesn't leave you hanging but does make you think.... and these are exactly that.
In fact having only recently discovered this author I now adore him - his writing is interesting and absorbing, the style is brilliant and draws you in, the characters are totally believable.... in short, he is an extremely clever man. It's so good to feel you can rely on a writer never to disappoint - I'm moving on to read everything else he has written!

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Lindsay Rebbeck

Undercurrents

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 February 2019

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A compelling writer and a common theme uniting these stories...the special relationship between mothers and sons. Often dysfunctional, not always likeable characters but the situations are real and as readers we are made to feel their reality. There are no tidy solutions as in life - only uncompromising observation of human nature & the sometimes odd way we behave to one another, the things left unsaid. No happy endings, sometimes no definitive ending...just a moment caught in time. I prefer his longer stories where characters can change and situations be resolved. His descriptions of nature never fail to capture a mood but all rather depressing.

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Memorable stories

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 November 2007

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The thread that ties the beautifully written nine stories in this book together is that in each one there is a complex relationship between a mother and a son. I don't think that all of them `focus' on this relationship, as the blurb on the back has it, for only in four of the nine stories is it central. Rather, each one seems to me to focus on either the mother or the son; but whichever it is, we are let deeply into that person's thoughts and see the world through that person's eyes, and mostly it is a sad or even tragic world. A death figures in several of the stories. Some are most evocatively set in various very Irish communities: a criminal one in the first story, an Irish pub in the second, a small village where everyone knows everyone else in others. The long last story is set in the mountains of Spain. All are memorable in their deceptively simple style and in their psychological content.

21 people found this helpful

Helpful

ElaineW

Left wanting more from such an excellent author

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 April 2016

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Excellent author, excellent writing however I would have liked more in-depth stories. If you are just looking for short stories to dip in and out of then it hits the spot... I was left wanting more from each story.

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Elisabeth

"The story of the night" had such a strong smell ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 September 2017

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"The story of the night" had such a strong smell, that I got an allergic reaction and had to throw it out. I suppose it had been treated with some stuff against moist or mice, staying maybe in a cellar. Plse look into this matter.

Helpful

Great

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 January 2017

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Great short stories. How they should be written and with an impressive sensibility. These are quiet but brutal stories.

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Amazon Customer

Well written

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 April 2016

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I found the stories well written, with interesting insights and twists. I was left wanting more, which is probably the hallmark of a good short story.

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jeff

This is another easy read by the author

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 April 2016

Verified Purchase

This is another easy read by the author. I am so glad I picked up on him. Sometimes want to know follow ups about the characters in his books.

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