In 2006, Colm Tóibín received the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for “The Master” (2004), a novel about Henry James. IMPAC, a productivity improvement company which operates in more than 50 countries, established the writing award in 1996. A survey taken by members of the worldwide IMPAC group to determine their likes, dislikes and enjoyments ranked a love of reading high on the surveys’ returns. As it happened, IMPAC Florida Chairman, Dr. James B. Irwin, Sr., and the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Alderman Gay Mitchell, were discussing their fondness for reading. Hence, out of their conversations the prize was born.

The Award is unique in many ways. It’s the largest and most international prize of its kind. It is open to books written in any language. All works for consideration must be nominated by libraries in each capital city of the world. The Award is administered by Dublin City Public Libraries, and its prestige is ever-increasing.

Given the significance and cachet of this most esteemed writing prize, it is preconceived in one’s mind that its recipient would have to write superior literature. If not, then why would he or she win? Therefore, to question the supremacy of his or her works feels reckless and unsophisticated, a transgression against established literature.

Yet, not all writing appeals to all audiences. Some believe that Ernest Hemingway’s novels are overrated, and others dismiss Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” as overwrought melodrama. And so, in considering Colm Tóibín’s collection of nine short stories titled “Mothers and Sons,” one must buck the trend toward effusive praise.

This is not to say that “Mothers and Sons” is a book of poor quality — because it is not. Tóibín’s writing is uncluttered and direct. The stories are atmospheric and somber and contain an assorted cast of developed characters who are trying to manage their complex life-situations. But, because it has been dubbed an “absolute success,” “immaculate” and “stunning” and because of Tóibín’s status as a master of fiction, one expects that “Mothers and Sons” will be superbly satisfying. Instead, it is harmed by its own hype.

All writing has its characteristics and all writers have their techniques. When discussing the craft of writing, Tóibín is clear about his dislike for fiction that overplays. In a 2001 interview in “LIT Magazine,” Tóibín stated: “One thing I've noticed … is the way everyone tends to over-describe everything. You know, they'll have a scene with the house, the mother, the father, the brother; and the house will be described, then the mother, then the father, then the brother till its overdone, and you're saying, [‘Just get on with it.’] … In “Pride and Prejudice,” Jane Austen plunges straight in with hardly any description. There are no details of where or when or who, yet the character of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet is revealed marvellously [sic]. You just know what they are like without any fuss.”

In “Mother and Sons,” Tóibín applies his penchant for the quick entry into a narrative to each of his stories. The drama is already underway at the start and Tóibín, as wielder of the action, simply pulls back the curtain and invites you in.

Once inside you meet mothers who are distant from their sons, those who are devoted to them despite their bad behavior and treacherous ways, those who are committed to the proper rearing of their boys and those who leave theirs sons behind. Conversely, you encounter sons who are proud of, and long for, their mothers; those that treat them with disdain and those who seek them out for comfort.

However, the collection is not a fleshing out of the relationships between mothers and sons; rather, it is the presence or the absence of the mother or the son that drives the narratives’ tension and consequence. Tóibín does not squeeze his characters into one-dimensional roles. The mothers have depth beyond their motherhood, just as the sons are more than offspring.

For instance, in “Famous Blue Raincoat,” Lisa discovers that her teen-aged son, Luke, has been burning to CD the albums that she and her sister and their contemporary folk band recorded in the 1970s. It’s been years since she’s heard herself sing. This part of Lisa’s life is “seldom mentioned … so that even she herself had come to half-believe that she had … [not had a] life as a singer.” The knowledge that Luke is listening to her sing, that he’s hearing her band’s sound, that he wants her to listen to the CD with him hurls Lisa back into her past. She thinks back to the band’s short-lived fame, their break-up and the devastating events that later occurred. Luke plays the disc for his mother. As it ends, Lisa meets head-on “her own reduced self.” It is her hope that she will never have to listen to the CD again.

“The Use of Reason” features an unnamed thief, who trusts no one and is skilled in the use of violence. He thinks his mother is a blabber-mouthed boozer and misguided in her estimation of his loyalty to her. His mother’s voice, “shrill” and “insistent,” is one “that he had managed most of his life never to allow into his conscious day.” He relishes a world with no thoughts or feelings and consigns his mother and everyone else — except his two-year-old daughter, Lorraine — to this “great emptiness.” 

He’s recently stolen some paintings, including a Rembrandt, and knows the Gardai are watching him. He learns that his mother has unknowingly been recorded while speaking to an undercover garda, spilling information about his activities. He warns her to keep quiet. After their conversation, he “felt that he was thinking clearly for the first time in months” and was freed from indecision. There is no emotion to their exchange. It is not a reconciliation between mother and son. Instead, it spurs distance and his further delight in obscurity, nothingness, a “vivid emptiness.”

Eight of the nine tales are set in Ireland. “The Name of the Game” and “A Priest in the Family” are two that put forth a kind of traditional “Irishness.” The former achieves this through its dialogue, character names and precise portrayal of life lived in a small, observant Irish village; the latter, Tóibín confirms, “comes from a definition of Irish respectability: ‘A well in the yard, a bull in the field and a priest in the family.’ “

“A Long Winter” — the last, longest and best — takes place in Spain’s Catalan Pyrenees, where a family, including Miquel, his younger brother Jordi, who has just left the family to serve his military duty, a father and a mother confront loss, cruelty, desire and death. Here, the father’s presence is as critical to the story as the mother’s sudden absence. “A Long Winter” is a quietly suspenseful tale. Tóibín’s controlled prose depicts perfectly Miquel’s torment and the Pyrenees’ harsh landscape. The emotion that “A Long Winter” evokes is a fitting end to “Mother and Sons.”

Tóibín is the author of five novels and 10 works of nonfiction. “The Master” also won the 2004 “Los Angeles Times” Book Prize for Fiction. “Mothers and Sons” is Tóibín’s first collection of short stories. He resides in Dublin.

 Amy O’Loughlin is a regular contributor to MotherTown. She is a native of Clinton.