• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Regal House Publishing

Advancing Finely Crafted Literature

  • Home
  • About Us
    • The Origin Narrative of an Indie Press
    • The Regal Mandate
    • Staff
    • Our Imprints
    • The Regal House Initiative
    • Our Professional Affiliations
    • RHP’s Climate Commitment
    • RHP Summer Scholars Program
    • Contact & FAQ
    • Blog
  • Authors
    • Our Authors
      • Regal House Authors and Poets
      • Fitzroy Books Authors
      • Pact Press Authors and Poets
    • Forthcoming Publications
    • Sour Mash: RHP’s Southern Literature Series
    • Regal House Reading Series
  • Submissions
  • Marketing & Distribution
    • Our Distribution and Printing Partners
    • Our Production Partners
    • For Retailers
    • Marketing
    • Events
    • Book Spiel
    • A Conspiracy of Lemurs Podcast
    • (HER)OICS tour
  • Contests
    • The Kraken Book Prize for Middle-Grade Fiction
    • The Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction
    • The Acheven Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction
    • The W.S. Porter Prize for Short Story Collections
    • The Terry J. Cox Poetry Award
  • Shop
    • Regal House Titles
    • Fitzroy Books Titles
    • Pact Press Titles
    • Sour Mash Titles
    • Greeting cards
    • Rishi Organic Teas & Tea Accessories
    • Joe Van Gogh Organic Coffee
    • Cart
Plugging the Causal Breach by Regal House Publishing author Mary Byrne

Plugging the Causal Breach

Rated 5.00 out of 5 based on 1 customer rating
(1 customer review)

$9.99 – $16.95

by Mary Byrne

 

 

Clear
SKU: N/A Category: Regal House Titles Tags: Mary Byrne, Plugging the Causal Breach, short story collections
  • Description
  • Additional information
  • Reviews (1)

Description

The stories in Plugging the Causal Breach explore the lives of a disparate collection of characters from French life. Many live in the shadow of the wonders of historic Paris, others in the villages of Normandy, others still in the French Midi. Here, tellingly brought together, they form the scattered mosaic of a historical puzzle that is far beyond the individual’s grasp.
Some choose to be loners: furniture vendor M. Pierre, the drunken truck driver at the door of a cheap hotel, the sculptor watching his building go up in flames, a depressed estate agent. Others fight something bigger than themselves: Zorica’s trouble with the French administration, the harassment Chantal endures while working within it. There are traces of an older France in stories from Normandy, in the tale of a German ex-POW’s war and his courageous local companion, in the account by a former chateau cook of what may be a rural myth.
These stories depict a lesser-known France, brimming with communicative boldness, resilience, and humor.

Praise for Plugging the Causal Breach

‘A moving, authentic rendering of a life, which becomes extraordinary in its ordinariness. From start to finish, “A Parallel Life” rings with integrity and wisdom.’
– Karen Brennan, judge, Kore Press Award.

Related

Additional information

Weight 0.587 lbs
Dimensions 5.5 × 0.4671 × 8.5 in
Format

Paperback, Epub

1 review for Plugging the Causal Breach

  1. Rated 5 out of 5

    Judy Crozier – September 8, 2019

    On Mary Byrne’s Plugging the Causal Breach
    A review by Judy Crozier

    At first it
    was like approaching music through the breeze, the way it comes and goes, in snatches. Sometimes near sometimes humming like something remembered, and sometimes so suggestive. You move through the night, closer to the light and the music, and you enter. And here are all the people, and here all the music, sometimes almost – but not quite – the same piece, played by a different character.
    Mary Byrne is Irish and, so obviously, brings to her writing a century or so of literary culture with all that singing Irishness going on. And then she applies it to France. What a unique, thinking and beautiful experience.
    Her characters, moreover, live in France but move over it as migrants do, especially those with an unfinished history elsewhere. France, she tells us, carries with it the history of a restless Europe. France is many things, and even the French themselves can regard each with suspicion, as strangers:

    ‘In Paris, they always thought people in the south
    should be out sunning themselves.
    ’
    Layer upon layer she gives us, with her characters surviving, lost or seeking, and perhaps finding a meaning that may not be there. ‘Plugging the causal breach’, indeed.
    A story might return to a theme from a previous story, as if we entered it by a different door. such as the tragedy of the foot in the chimney. Music again, dissonant, a theme that returns. An image that leaves both us and Mary’s characters at a loss. A story might be about the realisation of a dream that kills you. Stories about the courage of ordinary people who are, when we look closely, bold and bright and extraordinary, surviving in the midst of transience and the chaos of life.
    All of these stories have seen a life in a variety of journals, but together, here, they make up a new thing – that music that comes and goes, that winds together and settles, that keens and separates into something altogether new. Lovely stuff.

Add a review Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related products

  • This Side of Water

    $14.95
    Select options
  • St. Michael Poker and Drinking Club, A Regal House Publishing title by Ned Randle

    St. Michael Poker & Drinking Club

    $9.99 – $25.95
    Select options
  • What Empty Things are These by Judy Crozier

    What Empty Things Are These

    Rated 5.00 out of 5
    $6.99 – $16.95
    Select options
  • A Warsaw Chronicle

    Rated 5.00 out of 5
    $9.99 – $14.95
    Select options

Footer

The Regal House Enterprise

Regal House Publishing is the parent company to the following imprints:

Fitzroy Books publishing finely crafted MG, YA and NA fiction.

Pact Press publishing finely crafted anthologies and full-length works that focus upon issues such as diversity, immigration, racism and discrimination.

The Regal House Initiative, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that conducts project-based literacy and educational outreach in support of underserved communities.

From our Blog

Connect, Inspire & Explore: Commonplace Reader, Yardley, PA

The Book Cellar: A Chicago Literary Haven Since 2004

My line to writing was not a straight one

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Google +
  • Email
Regal House Publishing · © 2017–2021 · Website design by Lafayette & Greene