Walking the Dog

by Bernard Maclaverty

  “Again demonstrating his sure ear for ordinary speech, Irish writer MacLaverty constructs his stories around conversations, adroitly creating eloquent characterizations and compelling drama. . . . Under the tone-perfect slang and the inflection of small talk are the visible outlines of [the] characters’ buried lives, their moving connections and dislocations. . . . [A] provocative collection.”—Publishers Weekly

  “MacLaverty writes in deft, spare prose about ordinary people trying to maintain their integrity in a world of social menace and random violence.”—New York Times Book Review

  “MacLaverty’s deepest preoccupation is with the possibility of freedom—for the people in his stories and for the writer of them. The possibility, although real, is elusive. The stories assert that reality, insinuate that elusiveness with admirable skill.”

  —Seamus Deane, editor of The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing

  “MacLaverty writes with an honesty that is irresistible. With his attention to everyday detail, nuances of speech, and small, significant actions, he goes to the heart of his characters to produce something profound and quite unexpected.”—The London Evening Standard

  “MacLaverty’s real talent for dialogue with all of its folly makes these stories a pleasure to read.”—Boston Sunday Globe

  A rich collection of short stories by one of Ireland’s contemporary literary masters.

  “Bernard MacLaverty’s stories are at once beguiling and admonitory. You begin by being grateful for their upfront accuracy and end up in thrall to the truth behind them, their sense of proportion and sensitivity to pain.”

  —Seamus Heaney

  “These are stories which powerfully address an important theme: the poignance and fragility of private lives in the shadow of public events. They mark out the balance and imbalance—the joy and defeat, the darkness of cruelty against the sweet ordinariness of life—in vivid and witty writing which never loses its compassion.”

  —Eavan Boland, author of In a Time of Violence

  “The stories in this collection are quiet and generous and amazingly powerful in their intimacy. MacLaverty’s fiction draws out the magic hidden beneath the surface of simple lives with unexpected grace . . . . [He] tells his stories with humor and understanding and with perfect control.”

  —Virginia Quarterly Review

  by the same author

  SECRETS AND OTHER STORIES

  LAMB

  A TIME TO DANCE AND OTHER STORIES

  CAL

  THE GREAT PROFUNDO AND OTHER STORIES

  Bernard MacLaverty was born in Belfast in 1942 and lived there until 1975 when he moved to Scotland. He is the author of three other collections of short stories, Secrets, A Time to Dance, and The Great Profundo, and two novels, Cal and Lamb, both of which have been made into feature films. Cal is also available in a Norton paperback edition.

  Copyright © 1994 by Bernard MacLaverty

  First American Edition 1995

  First published as a Norton paperback 1996

  “Walking the Dog” was originally published in Story magazine,

  “The Wake House” in GQ, and

  “A Foreign Dignitary” in the New Statesman.

  All rights reserved

  The Library of Congress Has Cataloged the Printed Edition as Follows:

  MacLaverty, Bernard.

  Walking the dog, and other stories /

  Bernard MacLaverty. – 1st American ed.

  p. cm.

  I. Title.

  PR6063. A2474W35 1995 94–36707

  823'.914 – dc20

  ISBN: 978-0-393-31453-3

  ISBN: 978-0-393-63488-4 (e-book)

  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

  W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS