The Word For Yes (Selected Stories) contains stories selected from Tom Mac Intyre‘s previous titles, Dance the Dance (Faber and Faber, 1970), The Harper’s Turn (Gallery Books, 1982) as well as a number of more recent stories.
‘Imagine it’s pitch dark.
Now:
hit it where it shines.’
— from ‘Pot Black’
‘The Word for Yes turns its back on conventional notions of what makes a short story . . . burns with a fierce, incandescent energy. Of the twenty-one stories, fourteen are culled from the author’s two previous collections. Despite his wide range of sources — childhood, colloquial dialogue, bits of ballads, humour. lyricism, folk-tales and Celtic mythology — his hallmark is concision. There’s not a superfluous word here and thus some of the pieces extend to no more than a page or two. Many readers may, I suspect, baulk at his elliptic style, but I for one am envious or how quickly he can get to the heart of things . . . you’ll be marvelling at the sheer visual quality of the writing — “A stallion ricocheted into the sun, pawed for the sky, and let out a whinny that flared over the town . . . Long may Tom Mac Intyre conjure up such intense, uncompromising work.’ — John Dunne, Books Ireland
