Departures (drue Heinz Literature Prize For Short Fiction)

The stories in this extraordinary collection are set in Northern Ireland, specifically Belfast, the center for more than thirty years of fighting between Roman Catholic nationalists and Protestants loyal to the British crown. Cornell is not preoccupied, however, with the details of the war. Her stories explore the emotional and psychological consequences of the struggle to endure not only violence, but loss, failure, and the inability to believe. The principal setting for this extraordinary collection is Northern Ireland, specifically Belfast, the center for more than thirty years of fighting between Roman Catholic nationalists and Protestants loyal to the British crown. Cornell is not preoccupied, however, with the details of the war, its bombings and killings, its politics and history. Cornell's characters are strangers to each other, and often to themselves. Though fear and self-consciousness keep them isolated, they hope for some human connection to save them from despair. But salvation - when it comes - proves elusive, undermined by mutual suspicion, conflicting identities, and the constant pressures of daily life: this is a community in which unemployment is rife, where public walls are painted with paramilitary slogans, and where individuals have little control over the world around them. And yet Cornell's characters continue to struggle against despair, imbued with what Camus has called "creative fatalism" - the ability to hope despite helplessness, grief, and the inability to define themselves comfortably in the world. The setting is Northern Ireland. In Outtake, a Protestant youth attempts to pick up a Catholic girl in a tavern, then makes the mistake of accepting a ride home with her friends, while Heat draws a parallel between violence in animals and violence in humans