Theatres of Intimacy in Lucy Caldwell’s and Jan Carson’s Short Fiction

Abstract

This article proposes a comparative reading of short fiction by Northern Irish authors Lucy Caldwell and Jan Carson. It argues that Caldwell and Carson rethink the short story as a profoundly relational art by expanding the dramatic qualities of the form and by constantly blurring the lines between narrative and dramatic writing. Focusing on Caldwell’s and Carson’s exploration of paradoxical forms of intimacy, it initially examines the physical spaces of Caldwell’s and Carson’s short stories as liminal, dramatic settings of their characters’ intimacies. It then discusses the dramatic quality of the inner monologues that are staged in these spaces, first, by establishing a parallel with uses of the monological form in radiophonic art and second, by scrutinising the performative effects of the use of the second-person pronoun. It concludes by drawing attention to the complex ways in which Caldwell and Carson foster intimacy with their reader by blurring the lines between reading and listening.

Keywords

• Lucy Caldwell
• Jan Carson
• short story
• intimacy
• monologue
• radioplay