Storytime

With his first volume of his personal chronicle, Light Years, published to great acclaim in 2002, Augustus Young came to attention as an Irish writer outside the usual conventions, well able to exploit his heritage but not bound by it. His mastery of prose style, humour and ability to adduce within his writing an astonishing compass of material is the basis of his originality. Storytime continues his perceptions of his family, the Ireland of his experience and imaginings, and the literary marketplace. Against this is set the wider culture which provides him with a viewpoint for understanding both himself and the world he lives and has lived in. Storytime is humourously satirical, entertaining, but also acutely reflective about a culture in transition and the possibilities of survival. It is ultimately a work, it becomes clear, written as a way of fending off fear of death. In the end, Augustus's story is about two deaths, that of a culture and his own. That neither is conclusive suggests that for the author, the telling of stories ensures transition into an afterlife. Naturally, he finds this reassuring both for the culture and himself.