Trespassers

Áine Greaney has her finger on the pulse of the transnational Irish experience and the challenges of contemporary feminism. Trespassers brilliantly engages themes of aging, gender, sexuality, and the family to depict an empowered but entrapped Irish diaspora in the throes of identity formation. Simultaneously rife with nostalgia for home and the fierce desire for success in Cape Cod and greater Boston, Greaney’s collection is an exemplary illustration of the Irish immigrant presence in New England.

Ellen Scheible, Professor of English at Bridgewater State University and author of Body Politics in Contemporary Irish Women's fiction: The Literary Legacy of Mother Ireland.

 

What a perfect title Áine Greaney has put on this poised and closely wrought collection. Her characters (most of them Irish women) dwell in spaces where they never feel completely at home. One woman feels that there is “a constant scrim between herself and the world;”another reveals that “dark things flit around the edges of her mind, like a wasp at the window.” They  are indeed trespassers into awkward emotional terrains—and their successes are usually triumphs of adaptation and endurance.  

James Silas Rogers, author of Irish-American Autobiography: Divided Hearts

 

Áine Greaney’s new collection of short stories, Trespassers, is an admirable addition to her elegant, engaging body of fiction spanning more than two decades. A County Mayo native now living in Massachusetts, Greaney’s characters reveal what it means to be an Irish woman making her way in the world today, whether it be in New England or Ireland.  Greaney’s voice is authentic and her ear for dialogue and cadence is unerring. Greaney’s characters weather impulsive love affairs, unexpected pregnancies, disappointing marriages and the long journey home to bury a parent, but they shoulder their burdens with grace and humor, even as their flaws and foibles get revealed. Despite their travails, Greaney’s characters remain sturdy and optimistic, as if the promised land is still waiting to be discovered.   This is a collection of stories to savor.

Michael Quinlin, author of Irish Boston

 

Who hasn’t once lamented “I don’t belong here!” The characters in Trespassers join that cry from a compelling variety of situations. Thanks to Áine Greaney once again for writing so powerfully from the land off the other, we hear them loud and clear, whether the voice (and you will so clearly hear voice!) is that of a child new to the land of divorce, a mother chafing at life in an in-law apartment, a single wedding guest who offers lodging to a stranger, a teen on a work visa who might end up with a very living souvenir of a one-night stand. Webs of connection to Ireland and America cling to each story, but don’t overshadow the universality.  I know I won’t be the only one who raced through these stories like morsels from a box of sweets, realizing I had only so many to enjoy while I kept on reading.

Suzanne Strempek Shea, author of Becoming Finola