Banshee: Mythological Irish Women Retold
Author: Edited by Ailbhe Malone
ISBN-13: 978-1408749357
Publisher: John Murray
Guideline Price: £22
The editor’s passion for Irish folklore and mythology is the magic ingredient in this enthralling short story anthology. With Banshee: Mythological Irish Women Retold, Ailbhe Malone stimulates renewed homage for the rich legacy of Irish storytelling that pours down to us through the millenniums.
At the same time, in summoning a contemporary team of writerly adepts to breathe their modern perspectives through these ancient tales, Malone rekindles for future generations the living, ever-evolving nature of the Irish storytelling tradition. And so, alongside stories than maintain an ancient cosmic, archetypal or folkloric feel, we have well-known characters – Deirdre of the Sorrows, Aoife who cursed the Children of Lir, the horse goddess, Macha – transplanted into, for example, 21st-century scenes of urban struggle, or the hell of a mother and baby home ruled by a paedophile priest.
The resulting variety is breathtaking; in one moment, you’re guffawing at surreal satire or tripping on poetic beauty and shaking a righteous fist or recoiling in horror in the next.
What a fun and fascinating commission for the extraordinarily talented word witches who’ve been “coven-ed” in this beautiful book. Jane Casey, Naoise Dolan, Salma El-Wardany, Wendy Erskine, Nikita Gill, Anne Griffin, Sarah Maria Griffin, Jess Kidd, Megan Nolan and Sheila O’Flanagan each took an ancient Irish tale as launch pads for their own storytelling skills, carte blanche but for the editorial brief, described in Malone’s introduction: “Rewrite these legends so that women are the fulcrums of the stories rather than the levers.” The writers have asked themselves, what might these traditional stories become if – instead of having neither agency nor interior lives – the women characters lead?
Judging by the quality of the writing, Malone’s guidelines unleashed powerful creative energy. Each story delivers a killer last line: one of the hallmarks of brilliance in the short story form. Authorial relish and exuberance are apparent on every page.
With some mythological reconstructions, prior knowledge is required for the new story to land, while in feminist retellings there’s a risk that worthiness might hinder a book’s unputdownability. Neither of these apply here. The imaginative freedom in Banshee’s stand-alone stories is remarkable. This makes it a must, not just for lovers of Irish folklore, but for readers of magic realism and speculative fiction, too.