Book Review: ‘Short Stories from Faraway Places’ by Kevin O’Flaherty

Title: Short Stories from Faraway Places

Author: Kevin O’Flaherty

Publisher: Self Published

Publication Date: 2024

Short Stories from Faraway Places is a collection for four short stories by author Kevin O’Flaherty. Set in locations around the world, the stories follow the struggles of their protagonists as they explore a new environment.

The Garden of the Republic

James, a New Yorker, signs up for a Non-Government Organisation to help build a health clinic in Argentina. Alone in a new country, James has a mixture of successes and failures when it comes to making new friends. An enjoyment of gambling and a sudden bar fight cause problems for James.

Zabalburu Urkia

As the opening states: ‘This story is told from the viewpoint of an outsider about Basque mythology.’

Liam, an Irishman in his forties, signs up to teach English in a Spanish school. It quickly becomes clear that Liam has no previous teaching experience causing prolonged periods of stress which causes his stammer and dyslexia to worsen. Struggling to make friends, he instead hikes solo through the Basque landscape; becoming interested in local lore and legends.

The Bells of Gloucester

We follow the paths of two school boys – Johnny and David. Johnny’s father is a violent drunkard. This in turn affects Johnny’s performance and behaviour at school. David drifts away from Johnny and finds new friends who are not the best influence on him. A web of adolescent drama ensues.

Celtic Verde

Conner’s parents emigrated to America from Ireland. Conner makes the journey in reverse. We see Conner struggling to connect to people throughout the story and he finds it difficult to gain employment. The story shifts into supernatural territory before Conner must choose to either continue forging his own path or return home to his family.

Personally I prefer short story collections whose stories share a common theme or genre to show why the author decided to link them together. Faraway Places fulfils this requirement. Each plot follows a pattern where the protagonist experiences a period of hardship after they have been on a journey. Three of these journeys are physical, while the fourth is a coming of age journey. The stories also feature the protagonist ‘finding themselves’ with each character left in a more positive place by the narrative’s end compared to the start.

Sadly, for me, the stories were let down by a couple of points.

O’Flaherty clearly enjoys researching the geography and history of the places he writes about. I think it is wonderful that he wants to share this knowledge with his readers however the majority of these facts are conveyed through dialogue. A consequence of this is that the exposition-heavy dialogue is often written very formally which gives it an unnatural feel. At times the formal dialogue also makes it difficult to identity which character is currently speaking. Instead I wish the author had found ways to show us both the locations and the characters’ thoughts without always telling us through dialogue.

Something that confused me was why information was often immediately repeated. For example during ‘The Garden of the Republic’, we find the following interaction:

Sofia: Your friend Dario stopped by near my school the other day. He said hello to me.

James: What a coincidence that you ran into him near your school.

While it can be useful to remind readers of key plot moments at certain points in a story, this type of repetition and paraphrasing felt unnecessary and it slowed the pace of the stories.

This is purely personal preference but I was disappointed by the lack of positive female characters in the collection. ‘The Garden of the Republic’ and ‘Zabalburu Urkia’ both feature female characters who act as potential love interests for James and Liam only to be portrayed as villains for getting upset when our protagonists suddenly ignore them after leading them on for months. ‘The Bells of Gloucester’ perpetuates the idea that girls only like boys who are horrible towards them and ‘Celtic Verde’ sees Conner turn aggressive and controlling towards Siobhán only for the story to quickly move on from this moment. Only school teacher Magari in ‘Zabalburu Urkia’ is portrayed in a positive way however I found her to be a very frustrating character as, for months, she puts Liam and his poor teaching skills ahead of the needs of her pupils.

Short Stories from Faraway Places is a collection with a lot of potential. While I liked learning about places and cultures I was unfamiliar with, the writing style and questionable character choices sadly stopped me from properly enjoying the stories.

An Advanced Reader Copy of ‘Short Stories from Faraway Places’ and the images used in this review were kindly provided by Kevin O’Flaherty. For more of his work check out his author page.

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