![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5072307_6_articleinlinemobile_Imperfect_Beings.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nDermot Bolger has long been an astute analyst of what Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn calls \u2018Dublin\u2019s suburban underbelly\u2019, but in this new collection of stories casts his net a little wider, his kindly eye roving our island in search of festering regrets.<\/p>\n
If his book has a unifying theme it\u2019s the toxic potential of memory, which can bubble up at any time to overwhelm the flimsy present. And the older you get, the heavier the past\u2019s burdens become.<\/p>\n
In the opening story, Stopping at Trooperstown, a middle-aged man and woman stall their car outside a former B&B where they once experienced a magical night.<\/p>\n
Andrew is happy that Julie remembers making love out here in the middle of nowhere during a thunderstorm, but is also amazed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because after a serious brain injury inflicted by a car crash, Julie\u2019s whole sense of reality has shifted: she does not, for instance, recall that she left Andrew for a younger man, and is convinced they are still married. With mixed feelings, he plays along.<\/p>\n
In two stories, Half-Sister and O Professor, grown children set out to resolve messes left behind by their parents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When a mild-mannered Galway businessman travels to Scotland to track down the woman he believes is his long lost half-sister, he instead is confronted with a strange case of stalking and obsession involving his mercurial late father.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And in O Professor, a grown son trails an elderly academic to his home on a Portuguese island to avenge the posting of nude images of his dead mother. Again, the reality is not so simple.<\/p>\n
In The Nine-Iron, a widower driven mad by grief beans an obnoxious fellow golfer on the par four ninth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And golf recurs in The Lady Captain, as Eileen, a respected club elder, finds her progress around the course impeded by a terrible accident that killed a young man and changed her life forever.<\/p>\n
All of these protagonists are plagued in some way or other by regret, haunted by people and events everyone else has long forgotten.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And if they aren\u2019t wasting precious time regretting what they did, they\u2019re obsessing over what they didn\u2019t do.<\/p>\n
Jerome, a salesman who stops for petrol in Service Station Plaza, is astonished to find his old girlfriend, Carole, sitting at a table.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She had mental health issues, and he has always regretted their break-up, but new revelations will set him straight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When he asks Carole if she wants more coffee, she tells him pointedly that \u2018nothing is ever as nice the second time\u2019.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In An Unknown Woman\u2019s Name, a former statesman slowly succumbing to dementia wonders why he did not stoop to kiss a beautiful young woman in a bedsit 50 years before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite an action-packed life, this non-event haunts him, and he wonders if it might be the last thing he ever recalls.<\/p>\n
And in the best story, A Keeper, former lighthouse man S\u00e9amus is reminded by a kissing couple of a shameful incident in his youth for which he has never forgiven himself.<\/p>\n
Peppered through these tales are telling period details: \u2018a slurp of Harp\u2019, \u2018sucking on Players No 6\u2019, the evocative power of a miraculous medal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And Dermot Bolger writes best when he writes sparely, at times delivering blunt life lessons, unvarnished home truths.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMoney has its smell,\u201d Carole tells Jerome in Service Station Plaza. \u201cPoverty likewise.\u201d \u201cDo we ever know our parents?\u201d Hannah wonders aloud in Half-Sister.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And in A Keeper, S\u00e9amus bitterly recalls \u201cthe casual cruelty of great beauty at play\u201d.<\/p>\n
And always, doubts are raised by the hopeless subjectivity of our recall. In The Lady Captain, Eileen wonders if her boring but dependable husband George \u201calso brought secrets to the grave; because even dull men must have hidden depths and desires\u201d.<\/p>\n
And the ailing politician in An Unknown Woman\u2019s Name worries constantly if his memories can be trusted. Then again, can anyone\u2019s?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dermot Bolger has long been an astute analyst of what Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn calls \u2018Dublin\u2019s suburban underbelly\u2019, but in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5193,61,60,191552,80],"class_list":["post-439589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-books-fiction","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-person-dermot-bolger","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}