Books

Telling a lie while telling the truth

The Wooden Hill confronts the inevitable cruelty that awaits us all – death

Jamie Guiney: author of The Wooden Hill

Jamie Guiney
Thu Nov 29 2018 - 16:56

Someone once told me, “The most difficult thing for a human being to do, is just to be still.” And there’s truth to that, because when the commotion of life is removed, we have to face ourselves, and face what it is to be human.

I am a writer. I believe it is my job, my vocation even, to give you the truth. Because that is the foundation of life; as primal as breathing or the closing of an eye. But to give you these truths, I must bubble-wrap them in the lies of fiction, for it can take a strong stomach to digest the realities of being human, unless we are entertained along the way. “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it,” wrote Flannery O’Connor.

In writing stories for The Wooden Hill, there was nothing I could do only confront the inevitable cruelty that awaits us all – death. And I say cruel, because it is cruel that we are given this wonderful and special and awesome gift of life, yet when all is said and done, we still have to die. The hardest truth to accept. And so, we spend our lives avoiding and trying not to think about it, because death could easily consume us before it has even arrived at our door. And sometimes it does. But as a writer, I sprinkle it through the fictional lives of my characters and among the craic and innocence and sometimes tears, I draw you in until you have barely realised what has happened. And you will say, “Hold on, I came here to be entertained! Now I’m going to die!” Doris Lessing captures it eloquently: “There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.”

So where’s the hope?

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It is in the faces of children. It is a cool breeze. It is friendships. Love. It is the warmth of the sun upon your skin. Hope is saying I do, I will and I can. Hope is falling down and getting back up again. It is being alive. It is the beating of your heart. As Walt Whitman puts it: “Whatever satisfies the soul is truth”.

It is no surprise that the title story to this collection was the most difficult to write. The Wooden Hill is a story that I had wanted to write for a decade. Actually it was something more than want, I had to write it. A story of my grandmother’s death, and of so many deaths, and of the final step on the stairs of life that are The Wooden Hill. For life is a climb, through existence, toward whatever it is you believe in when everything ends. Yet, there is much joy and experience to be had along the way.

This collection is split into three parts – Childhood. Adulthood. Elderhood – to reflect this amazing circle of life and the unrelenting ascent up The Wooden Hill.

I hope that my stories will make you laugh. And cry. And realise some truth about yourself.
Jamie Guiney's debut short story collection The Wooden Hill is published by époque press on November 30th and will be reviewed in The Irish Times on December 1st. From Co Armagh, he is a graduate of the Faber & Faber Writing Academy and has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. @jamesgwriter jamieguiney.com