SOURCE: Dallat, C. L. “Decline in the West.” Times Literary Supplement (21 March 1997): 25.

In the following review, Dallat contends that Higgins's short fiction collection Flotsam and Jetsam “offers a vivid illustration of his range and eclecticism, his outstanding control of atmospheres, his literary development and his importance in the history of twentieth-century Irish literature, in which he can be seen as a missing link between the modernist period and contemporary writing.”

When Aidan Higgins's Langrishe, Go Down, a densely textured novel of imperilled sexuality in the unlikely context of the impoverished Irish gentry, appeared in 1966, it surprised reviewers as much by its faithfulness to Joyce's eclectic inclusivity as by its willingness to engage with the literary methods of post-war Europe. Higgins began his career, however, as a writer of short fiction, and this compendium, despite its off-hand title, not only brings together his best shorter work but allows the...