Slippery, flawed and acute, Old Romantics is a collection of alternative romances told from a netherworld of love and disenchantment by an astonishing new talent.
The linked stories follow the interior biography of an indistinct Dublin woman, from early adulthood into motherhood and the trials of young family life right up to pandemic times. Whether a catastrophic road trip, an ill-advised career move or a sinister encounter on the beach, these stories dig at the heart of what it is to be alone and alienated in your world. The heroes of these escapades are thickly masked and often unreliable as they pursue each other. Love is sometimes obsessive and often delusional. Motivations are slippery, expectations are shattered, and self-knowledge is hard-won yet inevitable.
This collection opens the under-seam of what it is to fall in love and back out again. Romance has a rotten heart, but love is real and infinite. From bad dates that call to mind an Irish ‘Cat Person’ by Kristen Roupenian, to comically observed workplace absurdity, Maggie Armstrong is a powerful new voice in Irish fiction.
I’m delighted to get to kick off the #blogtour for Maggie Armstrong’s Old Romantics. I found the blurb to be quite intriguing and the cover is sublime. Whilst I know I shouldn’t judge based on the cover, being realistic, a poor cover will not attract attention. I would most definitely be picking this one up off a book table to have a good look at were I to come across it in a bookshop. Romance is an interesting topic as the word itself conjures up some pre-conceived notions and, perhaps maybe just for me, suggests the content of the story might run down one or two particular lines. I feel that Old Romantics turns these around and introduces different concepts, forcing the reader to confront alternative notions. It’s not a book for someone wanting a light and fluffy read where you can switch off and not concentrate too hard. And that’s not to suggest any disrespect to that style of story – there are books for everyone and every time, I’m merely warning that the title hides a novel of greater depth than one might initially expect.
This is quite a different style of book from what I have been reading recently and I found it to be thought provoking and quite challenging in places. This is a book where I really took my time over the chapters and found myself having a think about what was happening in each for a little while before moving onto the next. It’s absorbing in quite a rich way with plenty of layers to unpick. In a world where we get a lot of more traditional and linear love stories, Old Romantics brings a different perspective and a bit of a look behind the curtain into some less idealised and ‘picture perfect’ relationships. Each interaction is sharply observed and whilst the chapters aren’t particularly long, they give an insightful, at times humorous, look at some of the absurdities of life at different stages.
This is a book for a reader who wants to luxuriate in cleverly crafted writing and allow themselves to be challenged whilst being entertained. I will be interested to follow Maggie’s career and read more of what she writes.
About Maggie Armstrong: Maggie Armstrong’s work has appeared in the Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, Banshee, Belfield Literary Review and elsewhere. She was nominated for a 2023 Irish Book Award. She lives in Dublin.
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