Mothers and Sons
Colm Tóibín
2007 Winner
Edge Hill Short Story Prize
23 May 2024
9781035029525Synopsis
A stunning collection of nine stories that teases out the delicate and difficult strands woven between mothers and sons.
'Beautifully captured moments of longing and loss' The Guardian
'Truly remarkable' Richard Ford
Mothers and Sons is a sensitive meditation on the dramas surrounding this most elemental of relationships. Psychologically intricate and emotionally incisive, each story focuses on a moment in which an unspoken balance shifts; in which a mother or son do battle, or experience a sudden crisis, thus leaving their conception of who they are subtly or seriously altered.
This is an acute, masterful and moving collection that confirms Colm Tóibín as a great prose stylist of our time.
Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.
Colm Tóibín is a writer of extraordinary emotional clarity. Each of the nine stories is a snapshot of a point of crisis . . . Tóibín perfectly understands the instantaneous nature of the ideal short story; the sense that the pen is going straight into a major vein. These are beautiful stories, beautifully crafted.Kate Saunders, Literary Review
The last story in this excellent collection is a superbly powerful tale of betrayal and desertion. Quintessential Tóibín.Spectator
Moving . . . beautifully captured moments of longing and loss . . . Tóibín is a subtle, intelligent and deeply felt writer.Guardian
