Elizabeth Cullinan (1933–2020)

Perusing my shelves, looking for a good read, I came across and started to read House of Gold (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), by Elizabeth Cullinan, a writer whose work, not well known, should be. Primarily a short story writer, most often for The New Yorker, I find myself wondering whatever happened to her. She published a brilliant collection of stories, Yellow Roses, about 20 years ago, shot through with what I call Irish fatalism. If I remember correctly, several of them focused on a doomed affair--the best kind, at least for literary purposes--between a shy young woman and a man named Charlie. She writes a bit like Edna O'Brien without the curlicues; there's the same romantic despair and the same lyricism, but it's kept on a tight leash. House of Gold, so far, is about the world's most monstrous Jewish mother. Mind you, a mother whose ambitions for her sons is that they become Jesuits is not, I would think, exactly your "average" Jewish mother. But hey, what do I know. I just a middle-aged Harp.… (altro)