'For All We Know We Don't' by Sean McNulty. Out Now! Review by Drew Gummerson

I am very pleased to announce the publication of 'For All We Know We Don't' - a collection of  short stories by our very own Sean McNulty. It's available to order from Amazon here:

https://tinyurl.com/msw6b5js

 
FOR ALL WE KNOW WE DON'T is a darkly comic picture of adolescence in Ireland's boisterous and poetic northeast. A coming-of-age story cycle from the glory days of VHS, Samantha Fox, and escaped paramilitaries.

Ireland in the late 1980s. It's the last year of primary school for three eager young boys living in the town of Dundalk along the Northern Irish border. Their world is one of bonfires, shoplifting, lusting after older girls, and battling with teachers and local ‘perverts’, never straying far from their favourite video shops and amusement arcades. But before secondary school begins, they must grapple with larger life questions of mortality, friendship, and providence.

Here's a review by Drew Gummerson:

For All We Know We Don’t  

‘Dere’s a rainbow lying over de Hill Street Bridge as we move closer to de shopping centre. Can’t remember anny rain earlier today. But shur, it always rains, it’s always coming down in some fashion or other. You’d be forgiven fur tinking it’s raining when it isn’t or isn’t when really it is. Rarely do you see colours like dat in de sky over dis town.  Dey say dere’s a pint of gold if you get to de end of it. But I’m well past believing dat. I agree now wit Dixon’s opinion dat if you wunt yer pint of gold ye have to take it from someone else.’

For All We Know We Don’t is the first short story collection of Irish writer, Sean McNulty. To start with, because I hate those reviews when you get to the end and you’re not sure if the writer of the review liked the book or not, I’ll put it out there, I loved. It’s brilliant. 

FAWKWD contains forty short stories. Each one is about schoolboys, Dixon, McGurk, and ‘meself’. The year is 1989/1990. The boys are in the year before big school. Oh, yes, and the stories are set in Dundalk. 

In tone these stories remind me of the Le Petit Nicholas books by Asterix writer René Goscinny - but while those evoke a simple nostalgic French childhood and these do that too, except Irish of course, these have a sharper tone. The ‘troubles’ loom, a schoolmate’s father has been arrested, he has escaped from prison, and then he goes on the run from the police taking the family with him. Dixon’s father, locally famous for being in a band in his youth, has turned to drink. Dixon’s house is dirty, he is not looked after, he is ‘mad’, encouraging his friends to steal, wreck revenge on those who have slighted him. 

But these are mostly the quiet adventures that young boys get up to. Finding wood for a bonfire. Getting your hair cut. Having your first kiss. Playing up at school. Acting in the school play, Crocodile Dundalk (an absolute banger of a story!) Going to the local video shop, Easy Weir’s, finding the best ninja films. Camping out in the back garden. 

‘De tent is pitched by nine and we’re inside wit de radio on getting troo a dozen or so packs of Monster Munch – dat’s Dixon, McGurk and meself.’

The stories are funny, absolutely charming, and also at times moving and contemplative. In Normal Applies Now our hero cycles around the town thinking about life, in another he climbs his secret tree, his ‘moomin’ tree as he calls it, his safe space where he will always come. 

These stories are set firmly in time and place. You read them and want to go there. And while the boys are thinking about the future, about escape, you, the reader, want to be there, with them. They are your escape, a perfect respite from the modern world. We all have our Acapulco. This book is mine. 

‘And yes ye might tink it’s Acapulco in Dundalk right now if you look up at dat sky and de full summer blue of it but ye’d hafta keep yer head back and aimed oweny at de sky – cause even just a glimpse of dose aerials and filthy chimneys and yer right back in Iron which is as far as ye can get from Acapulco.’

https://tinyurl.com/msw6b5js