Walking Ghosts : Short Stories

In these masterful stories, Mary O''Donnell captures characters caught between certainties and change—from urban encounters to sun-drenched beaches, lockdown anxieties to nightclub tensions. Her walking ghosts navigate the liminal spaces of contemporary Irish life with both sorrow and resilient hope.

''Each story shines in its own distinctive light.'' —Neil Hegarty

''O''Donnell is unflinching in her ability to display humanity in all its flaws and vulnerabilities.'' —Mary Costello

''The magic of her writing is in the subtle, mysterious evocation of the unconscious, of the potent mixture of mood and thought and half thought which colours human lives.'' —Eilis Ni Dhuibhne

''Searingly intimate and subtle stories, the beauty, the pain and the hope of desperate lives lived in everyday places. A fascinating, varied and utterly compelling collection.'' —William Wall

In this masterful collection, Mary O''Donnell explores the subtle fractures and quiet transformations that shape modern Irish life. Her characters navigate a society in flux, where traditional certainties give way to new complexities. A gay man and his trans partner face casual hostility on city streets. A tarot reader takes a fateful gamble during a session. In Edna a woman discovers the sharp edge of urban life while offering aid to strangers. On a sun-drenched Canary Islands beach, vacationing couples witness the arrival of migrants, forcing a confrontation with privilege and fate.

From pandemic lockdowns where a chocolate maker watches his business and sanity unravel to nightclubs where identity is both celebrated and challenged, O''Donnell''s stories serve as litmus tests for contemporary society. With unflinching precision, she reveals how quickly our certainties dissolve, leaving us to navigate a world of shifting possibilities.

These stories capture the secret sorrows and resilient hopes of characters caught between who they were and who they might become.