Walking Ghosts by Mary O'Donnell: An ambitious, dystopian and horny collection

Irish Times

07-06-2025

Walking Ghosts
Author
:
Mary O'Donnell
ISBN-13
:
9781917453226
Publisher
:
Mercier Press
Guideline Price
:
€16.99
The opening story of Mary O'Donnell's new collection sets a pattern for what is to come by depicting the Covid-19 lockdowns as an instance of paralysis in the Joycean fashion. Its protagonist struggles to live meaningfully in a world turned upside-down by 'that microscopic ball with the little cartoon feet', and many of the characters who follow experience a similar longing to shatter the nagging stasis of their lives.
On one level these are the walking ghosts of the title but, on another, they are ciphers for the old-guard tropes of Irish literary writing – the contested field, the London abortion, and so on – which O'Donnell here seeks to reanimate and, in one or two cases, cast aside entirely.
No surprise, so, that many of her protagonists are survivors of Ireland's literary-industrial complex (one rather brilliant tale, The Stolen Man, concerns a writing student succumbing to the seductive creative freedoms of Galway).
Yet, after several stories content to probe the margins of suburban realism, O'Donnell suddenly delivers a jolt of genre energy halfway through The Space Between Louis and Me. It is the kind of story that makes you go back and re-read it from the start (to say any more would be to ruin the surprise).
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Soon after comes The Creators, the most striking story here, which offers a reflective extrapolation of our contemporary climate crisis. Set in a future of 'fear and extreme heat' where Scotland's Hebrides have been transformed into 'Garden Isles', this is a deftly sketched portrait of desperation and desire, one worthy of inclusion on the eclectic shelf of insular dystopian fiction by Irish women (think The Bray House by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne or Last Ones Left Alive by Sarah Davis-Goff).
Walking Ghosts is a work of quiet ambition rich in standout descriptions ('He looks like a horse in a cubist painting'). Moreover, this is a horny collection, one happy to linger on female desire through chances taken – or not – on lost loves or intoxicating holiday acquaintances. Yet the most intriguing flirtation here is that of O'Donnell with speculative fiction. This paradoxically both elevates and anchors the proceedings. Because, yes, the future may be dire, but its calamitous potential may yet be dampened by the choices we make now.