From ‘rounds of sex’ to when romantic dinners give way to packed lunches: a woman’s search to find a soulmate
Maggie Armstrong’s Old Romantics follows the protagonist’s patchy experience of love through an insightful selection of short stories
Maggie Armstrong. Photo: Bríd O'Donovan
If happy couples are alike, every unhappy couple is unhappy in its own way, to paraphrase Leo Tolstoy. And so to the lovers in Maggie Armstrong’s debut collection, Old Romantics, who make each other miserable in countless ways yet remain convinced by their love affair long after incompatibility is established beyond dispute.
Margaret and Sergio Fantasia — a fantasy man who turns out to be controlling and prone to bouts of rage — are a toxic combination. Oddly enough, he isn’t the least appealing among Margaret’s boyfriends. That accolade belongs to the man with a wicked glint in his eye in ‘Baked Alaska’, who uses her as an unpaid intern, often suggests “a round of sex” (she accedes) and still doesn’t offer her a job.
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