Lucy Caldwell is less well known here than she should be; it’s time to correct that ... A genuinely ambitious and rewarding collection ... If Caldwell’s short story project were to end with Devotions, circling back to the idea that fate relies on knowing when and how to let go is a tremendously satisfying conclusion.
This varied collection demonstrates Caldwell’s confidence in the flexibility of the short story as a literary form. It builds on the success of her earlier work. Each of her collections works on its own terms, but taken together, they amount to something close to a writer’s autobiography ... Lucy Caldwell’s writing, which was already absorbing and sure-footed, is opening out in new directions.
Caldwell’s collections are some of the most thematically unified that I’ve read, and Devotions is no exception ... Caldwell’s characters who live with fewer regrets are overthinkers—or maybe just artists with a tendency to dwell on the past ... Some of the tension in these stories comes from the characters’ astonishment at the passage of time, at how hard it can be to find order and neatness in one’s own lived narrative ... Caldwell stops her stories short of wresting, and while that might frustrate readers who want to know what happens to her characters, others will find her mix of optimism and melancholy, her acknowledgment that there might not always be a meaning to grasp, reassuring.
The Northern Irish writer explores music and family, memory and duty in this stunning collection of sharply observed tales ... These stories are full of transformational delight in life and the spirit one moment, emotional and psychological threat the next. They’re considered enough to be savoured, one at a time, with an attention that responds to the intention of the author ... Never wrenched or overwrought, always an oblique yet perfectly human mix. If you want a window to look at the world through, it’s here.
While the Belfast writer Lucy Caldwell has published several well-received novels, she clearly holds a passion for the shorter form ... Four collections in a decade is quite something and, happily, it does not disappoint ... An entire literary festival could be dedicated to the question of which is more difficult to write, a great novel or a great short story. The former can move at a leisurely pace, allowing digressions and subplots, but stories need to stay on point, delivering their punch with the skill, speed and precision of Katie Taylor. One gets to the end of Devotions feeling that Caldwell has spent so much time in the ring, and understands the territory so well, that it would be a brave writer who would strap on the gloves to challenge her.
Lucy Caldwell is stealthily amassing the eventual mother of all short story anthologies ... Throughout her eight stories, her touch is so light, her observations so perceptive, her dialogue chattering off the page, that she more than underscores her reputation as one of the best practitioners of the short-form craft
... It is madness that story collections still get overlooked in favour of novels when their collective power often surpasses that of their more conventional counterparts ... We are lucky that writers like Caldwell persevere.
This introspective and wide-ranging story collection from Caldwell (These Days) is peopled with unsettled characters ... There’s much to admire in these nuanced stories.
