Quickly, While They Still Have Horses
Published on 20. February 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-1-80499-317-0 (ISBN)
Description
'Jan Carson is a born storyteller: her work is so imaginative, whimsical, mischievous and brave, but tender and curious too - you never know where she's going to take you next, so reading her is always an adventure. Exactly how it should be.' LISA MCINERNEY, author of THE GLORIOUS HERESIES
'Pure magic, funny, sharp, heartbreaking, the short form at its absolute best. Jan Carson is a unique and very special writer, one of the greatest of the modern fabulists. - DONAL RYAN author of HEART BE AT PEACE
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In sixteen sparkling stories, Jan Carson introduces us to worlds and characters that feel real enough to touch. All of life is here: the thrill of growing up, the grief when youth is over; first love, mature love, parenthood and loss - all shot through with profound compassion, warm wit, and boundless imagination.
In 'A Certain Degree of Ownership', a distracted couple on a beach fail to notice their baby crawl perilously towards the sea. In 'Troubling the Water', a rumour spreads at a public swimming pool and chaos ensues. In 'Fair Play' a dishevelled father loses his two sons in an adventure park.
Every so often, an irresistible suggestion of the other world will surprise and delight, reaffirming Carson as a thrillingly original and audacious talent, and making Quickly, While They Still Have Horses the perfect introduction for readers new to her work.
'Pure magic, funny, sharp, heartbreaking, the short form at its absolute best. Jan Carson is a unique and very special writer, one of the greatest of the modern fabulists. - DONAL RYAN author of HEART BE AT PEACE
------
In sixteen sparkling stories, Jan Carson introduces us to worlds and characters that feel real enough to touch. All of life is here: the thrill of growing up, the grief when youth is over; first love, mature love, parenthood and loss - all shot through with profound compassion, warm wit, and boundless imagination.
In 'A Certain Degree of Ownership', a distracted couple on a beach fail to notice their baby crawl perilously towards the sea. In 'Troubling the Water', a rumour spreads at a public swimming pool and chaos ensues. In 'Fair Play' a dishevelled father loses his two sons in an adventure park.
Every so often, an irresistible suggestion of the other world will surprise and delight, reaffirming Carson as a thrillingly original and audacious talent, and making Quickly, While They Still Have Horses the perfect introduction for readers new to her work.
Reviews / Votes
Jan Carson is a born storyteller: her work is so imaginative, whimsical, mischievous and brave, but tender and curious too - you never know where she's going to take you next, so reading her is always an adventure. Exactly how it should be. * Lisa McInerney, author of The Glorious Heresies * These stories are pure magic, funny, sharp, heartbreaking, the short form at its absolute best. Jan Carson is a unique and very special writer, one of the greatest of the modern fabulists. * Donal Ryan, author of The Queen of Dirt Island * Story after story glints with the strange, hard magic of the North - a seam that Jan Carson has opened in her previous books and mines here to perfection. From soft-plays that swallow children to static caravans where girls are sent ahead of marriage, babies that float down the river in biscuit tins and the pruch for sale at garden centres, this is a Northern Ireland at once uncanny and familiar, ancient and modern, and a set of stories only Jan could have written. I adored them. * Lucy Caldwell, author of These Days * Jan Carson's stories are by turns hilarious, heartbreaking, heartwarming - but always surprising. Quickly, While They Still Have Horses is a delight to read! * Eric Nguyen, author of Things We Lost to the Water * Jan Carson is one of the most original voices I've read in years. Her stories are fleet-footed and cunning and funny. They dare to look closely at what lurks beneath the quotidian surface of things, even if what is revealed will make you gasp. I am truly in awe of this collection. * Tania James, author of The Tusk That Did the Damage * What an enormous pleasure it is to read Jan Carson. Each short story is masterful, brilliantly inventive and moving. Every page reveals the mark of an extraordinary original and gifted writer. * Karl Geary, author of Montpelier Parade * Jan Carson is an essential voice from the island of Ireland-an island that holds a wider variety of stories than can be accommodated within strict realism or naturalism. With great skill, assurance, and a tentacular imagination, and by getting the details right, Carson conveys highly complex subjectivities with powerful simplicity. There's something of the fable about each of these stories-troubling, timeless, wistful and wise. * Caoilinn Hughes, author of The Wild Laughter * Utterly captivating . . . [Jan Carson's] gift for language sings on every page . . . Fiercely beautiful writing laced with tenderness and wit, that at its heart speaks to the complexity and emotional temperature of a modern Northern Ireland, real and imagined, without losing sight of the past. Carson is a tremendously gifted writer and a master of the short story . . . Everyone should read it. * Olivia Fitzsimons, author of The Quiet Whispers Never Stop * Short stories are difficult to make truly compelling but in Quickly, While They Still Have Horses, author Jan Carson does this effortlessly ... Her best yet. * IMAGE Magazine * [Jan Carson] is most definitely a free-thinking, trailblazing writer of well-observed, quirkily humorous fiction... This book is a wild but somehow, totally grounded read. Superb. * Sunday Independent *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Transworld Publishers Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 191 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
197 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80499-317-0 (9781804993170)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Jan Carson
Quickly, While They Still Have Horses
Short Stories by the Winner of the EU Prize for Literature
E-Book
04/2024
Transworld Digital
€8.99
Available for download
Person
Jan Carson is a writer based in Belfast. She has published three novels, three short story collections and two micro-fiction collections. Her novel The Fire Starters won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland 2019. Jan's latest novel, The Raptures was published by Doubleday in early 2022 and was subsequently shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Novel of the Year. Her short story collection Quickly, While They Still Have Horses was published by Doubleday (UK) in April 2024 and Scribner (US) in July 2024. Her writing has been aired on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and RTE.
She is the Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow at Queen's University Belfast 2025 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her first stage play, an adaptation of the children's classic, The Velveteen Rabbit will be produced by Replay Theatre Company at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in March 2025. Her next novel, Few and Far Between is forthcoming in early 2026.
She is the Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow at Queen's University Belfast 2025 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her first stage play, an adaptation of the children's classic, The Velveteen Rabbit will be produced by Replay Theatre Company at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in March 2025. Her next novel, Few and Far Between is forthcoming in early 2026.