She guesses that the reeds came from somewhere not too far away, along the River Shannon, most likely. In “The Gloves Are Off,” the roofs of nearby houses are being redone with reeds, and the reeds, the narrator tells us, are great big beautiful round bundles. Associative thinking, reverie, self-reflection, and keen awareness provide pinpricks of tension. Pond’s unnamed narrator lives her mostly solitary life on the outskirts of a small Irish coastal village near the River Shannon. What, then, is left? What is this new space in the form? The twenty pieces-the shortest is a couple paragraphs-eschew plot, lengthy dialogue, and the traditional shape of story. It has been heralded by UK critics as “sidestepping the usual conventions of narrative” and finding a “whole new space in the form.” Pond eludes classification. Pond, the debut collection by Irish writer Claire-Louise Bennett, was first published in Ireland by Stinging Fly Press and picked up by Riverhead Books in the US. Most of us don’t particularly want a lot of plot-sickness, divorce, loss, death-in our lives. Plot-the external forces that exert themselves on a life, causing it to twist and turn-happens at a dizzying if not exhausting pace.
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