Waiting for Billy and Other Stories, by Martin Healy, Lilliput, 156pp, £7.99

Keeping the Night Watch, by Fred Johnston, Collins Press, 168pp, £6.99

Martin Healy's collection of stories has been compiled and published posthumously by Lilliput Press. It was Healy's first book - he died last year at the age of 40. A native of Sligo, he had made his mark on the literary scene there in Force 10 magazine, of which he became the short-story editor.

The consolation is that there are many other unpublished stories by Healy, some incomplete, that remain for readers to discover. We should consider ourselves fortunate if, in future, a collection comparable to the present one appears.

It is a very strong collection, although it can be tough going. When it is not tragic or melancholic, it is at the least disturbing. In the foreword, the author's namesake, Dermot Healy, points out the similarity between these stories and those of Raymond Carver. Not only do many of Healy's characters seem to be banal, but they can be depressingly mediocre, also, as is often the case with Carver's people.

Unheroic, they are often aware, and so also ashamed, of their inability to control their own lives. There is a lot of heavy drinking here, and it is always self-destructive. When sexual urges invade the minds of some of the characters, we fear they will be expressed in a violent or ugly way.

In some instances, Healy gives us a straw of hope to clutch on to just as a tale is approaching a bleak ending. Whether these are offered in earnest or ironically is hard to tell - and probably that is the point. "A Fish in Pinstripes", for example, is the story of a house painter who thinks momentarily that the wealthy and attractive woman of the house wants to get him into bed, whereas in fact she wants him to remove a dead fish from a tank in her bedroom. The reader is keenly aware that the painter should feel humiliation when he discovers the woman's complete lack of interest in him, yet he seems oblivious.

As the story ends, and the painter sets back to work, another writer might provide us with some kind of emotional epiphany, a moment perhaps in which the character recognises his own debasement; however, what Healy writes is: "Several minutes passed before he could compose himself and focus on paint. Then he remembered he'd left his brush around the front, beside the door, beside the exotic flower. He strolled off to retrieve it, his step light as a dancer, the birds of suburbia trilling in his heart."

It is difficult to know what Healy's desired effect is in his portrayal of the painter's simplicity, his lack of depth, the artificiality of the birdsong that he hears, and the mediocrity of his concerns and his surroundings. Are we (condescendingly) to feel sorry for him, or are we to admire his resilience (bearing in mind that in this collection those who lack resilience are often hopeless cases)? It is in achieving such finely balanced ambiguities that Healy stands out.

Fred Johnston is a much-published and living author. The stories in his collection mesh much more coherently than do Healy's. Johnston is concerned with family histories, generations and sex. Apart from "The Hammer Man" and "Keeping the Night Watch", which are brilliant, the stories in this collection are strong yet they may not strike the reader as having anything new to say.

In many respects, the themes of introspection and personal identity, coupled with images of an Ireland both of the present and of the recent past, make this collection comparable to Niall Williams's novel Four Letters of Love. If you liked Williams's book, you'll like Johnston's, too.

Book Service:

To order these books and have them sent directly to your home or office, call The Irish Times Book Service at 1850 30 60 60