Published by Penguin, 1963, 239 pages. Stories originally published in 1953 and 1957.

“Some kids are cissies by nature but I was a cissy by conviction. Mother had told me about geniuses; I wanted to be one, and I could see for myself that fighting, as well as being sinful, was dangerous.”

A child competes with his father for his mother’s attention; a brilliant but sheltered boy discovers the world; and a boy from a poor family pretends that he comes from aristocracy.

These stories, set in post-Second World War Ireland, centre mostly around boys and men trying to navigate the world. Many of the protagonists are children, often trying to understand why grown-ups behave the way they do.

In the title story, Larry’s father, who has been away at war, returns home. They go to Mass to give thanks for his return: “The irony of it!”, thinks Larry. Until then, Larry had his mother’s entire attention. But now, this ideal world is disrupted by the stranger in the house. When Larry goes to his mother early in the morning to tell her his plans for the day—something he does every day—she tells him to be quiet in case he wakes his father. Larry is very annoyed. But when a new baby supplants both father and son in the mother’s affection, it brings them together.

In “The Genius”, Larry wants to understand how babies are made. His mother doesn’t really help, and when he asks his teacher, she tells him he’ll learn soon enough when the world robs him of his innocence. Larry is exasperated: “But whatever the world wanted to rob me of, it was welcome to it from my point of view, if only I could get a few facts to work on.” Then he meets Una, and Larry learns about love and heartbreak (but not really about how babies are made).

In “A Salesman’s Romance”, Charlie is driving his fiancée home, when he runs into a two-wheeled carriage. The carriage is on the wrong side of the road, and the accident pitches the driver—who was clearly drunk—onto the road. The driver tries to sue Charlie for damages, claiming that he had suffered a concussion as a result of Charlie running into him. That was a bad idea: you could accuse Charlie of anything but if you cast aspersions on his driving, you were in trouble. Charlie has no intention of taking any of this lying down, and the resulting trial is a delight.

Many of these stories share elements with Frank O’Connor’s life: a close relationship with the mother, a distant father, and poverty—many of the families in the stories are poor. O’Connor’s father was an alcoholic, who drove the family into debt and mistreated his wife. O’Connor adored his mother and never forgave his father for treating her the way he did.

These are warm, gentle stories. They are very much of their time, and provide an idea of what life—and social mores—must have been like in Ireland in the 1950s, a time that often feels very different from ours. But the people in his stories are not that dissimilar to us.

You feel that O’Connor knows these people, ordinary folk on the whole (and some bright boys who consider themselves geniuses). Some of the stories are funny, others are poignant and full of heartbreak. But there is humour throughout. The narrator of “A Salesman’s Romance” describes Charlie, a salesman, as someone who would sell anyone anything. “Charlie would be selling me a substitute self with a heart of gold that the manufacturers would replace within two years unless it gave perfect satisfaction.”

O’Connor makes you laugh but also lets you into the pain and anguish of his characters. There is no violence or drama here: just people going on with their lives, dealing with disappointments and heartbreaks, and doing the best they can.