So it’s rare that I put work online. And I’ve never written anything like this.
I’d love to know what you think of this departure in style – ‘Hollow’.
Here’s what Numero Cinq said about the story…
“To close out our amazing Irish lit series Uimhir a Cúig (No. 5 in Irish) we have wonderfully strange and disturbing short story from the award-winning Belfast novelist Paul McVeigh. Think of Ovid and the brothers Grimm in a mash up, plant-human sex, and the inevitably terrible outcome.”
A little about the magazine…
“Now in its seventh year the magazine has published a stellar array of new and known (international, award-winning) writers including among others, Lynn Coady, Mavis Gallant, Lance Olsen, Lydia Davis, Anthony Doerr, George Szirtes, Andrew Gallix, Kevin Barry, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, John Kelly, Doireann Ni Griofa and Kevin Barry. They’ve published novellas, entire books, plays, poems, translations, fiction, nonfiction, sermons, criticism, memoirs, music, art work, hybrid art, conceptual art, provocative graphics.”
What do you think of Hollow?
The Good Son 
As a storyteller, I love it, because it has that fairytale feel and imagery and the tone is pitch perfect. The ending is a surprise too. One of the things I loved about Seamus Deane’s “Reading in the Dark” was the way he wove fairytales and superstitions into the narrative and then one realised they were actually masking a different reality. This has that feel too. I’d love to tell it at our oral storytelling club one day and see what the reaction is. Would you mind? Or, even better, you could come and tell it.
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Thanks so much lovely Umi. I ‘m based in Belfast now so wouldn’t make it myself but please I’d be honoured if you read it. xx
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Thanks Kevin
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