The Illustrator (1988)

“I had decided that there was no starting a new life. There is a minimal self to which some can retreat, to which others are transported by shock or failure. A less bruisable, more watchful self. Beyond that leanness is flux, the shallows of madness. A person might think themselves small enough to fall from a great height and splash down safely in the water well of a paint box, or, they might take refuge in a bag of leaves suspended from a tree. This is the nearest one gets to starting again.
I looked at my watch. Nurse Cummings would be calling soon.”

The Dublin-based author has a wicked ear for conversational quirks and the minutiae of life. The Illustrator is compulsively readable THE SUNDAY PRESS

What this slender, bittersweet tale does best is convey the sharp taste of overwhelming grief and loss, in a deceptively glib tone of wry, cool detachment. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY