Praise for "In Exile":

"Just finished reading this wonderful new collection of short stories and I was very impressed by the quality and imagination of the writing. These stories, many of which deal with serious and even harrowing themes, are full of fine imagery and well-drawn characters. I am certain that this writer will be an important voice in Irish literature in the years to come. Highly recommended!" ~ The Tribune

Irish Emigrant Book Of The Week:

"The landscapes and seascapes of Ireland form both backdrop and foreground in this collection of stories by award-winning writer Billy O'Callaghan. Ranging from the wildness of Cape Clear to the violent streets of Belfast, they speak of an Ireland that in some respects is long gone but in others has a modern resonance. "The Wedding Day" is a perfect example of the former, the days of the "shotgun" marriage, the desperate need to formalise an unexpected pregnancy and the fact that "nobody even thought to mention love" in the context. Conversely, "All That Jazz" deals with contemporary Ireland and its new immigrant population of eastern Europeans, the exotic attraction of the unusual and one woman's discovery of her own self-worth. There is a particular poignancy in "No Room at the Inn", a story revealing the exile of poverty, of a young mother and her son at Christmastime seeking shelter, although the author injects a tentative note of hope as the story closes. Exile from islands plays a distinctive role in O'Callaghan's stories; we meet the Cape Clear man who observes the changes to his island home from the days of his grandmother to the "concrete boxes with black slate roofs" that are the summer homes for the people from the mainland; the man living in the Dublin suburbs who always knows when he has been dreaming of his island home by the way the English words as he speaks "feel awkward and ill-fitting". There is a constant undercurrent in these stories of a way of life lost, of a sense of there being no return to the ways of childhood; an exile encompassing both time and place. Not totally confining himself to Ireland, in "War Song" O'Callaghan engages with the experiences of a soldier in Vietnam as he is evacuated after being wounded in an ambush. He chooses the same stage for "Ghosts", in which an American soldier comes to terms with his first killing, "a boy... as young as fifteen maybe, or twelve". The killing by the soldier, only nineteen himself, is set in the wider context of war as he explains his reaction: "And if my age made me fearful then it also made me stupidly brave, which is why they have young men fight wars, I think"." ~ The Irish Emigrant

Praise for Billy: