SOURCE: Dunleavy, Janet Egleson. “The Making of Mary Lavin's ‘A Memory’.” Eire-Ireland 12, no. 3 (1977): 90-9.

In the following essay, Dunleavy investigates the origins and development of Lavin's short story “A Memory.”

Now in her early sixties with many awards behind her, including two Guggenheims and the prestigious Lady Gregory medal, Mary Lavin, best known to Americans through her short stories in The New Yorker, served her literary apprenticeship in Dublin in the days when Frank O'Connor, Sean O'Faolain, and Lord Dunsany were the major figures of a circle that helped develop the short story in English from mere tale to art form.¹ The circle in which she served her literary apprenticeship has long since dissolved into history and heritage, but Mary Lavin is still dedicated to writing as her art, fiction as her craft.

A story begins in the artist's imagination, for Mary Lavin, when—suddenly—she is struck...