SOURCE: "Tragic Irish Stories Blended with a Dash of Sly Humor," in Los Angeles Times, July 15, 1996, p. E3.

[In the review below, written upon the occasion of the U.S. publication of A Lazy Eye, Harris offers a thematic discussion of the work, finding the collection weaker than the novel Mother of Pearl.]

Those who read Mary Morrissy's first novel, Mother of Pearl, and saw that Ireland had produced yet another powerful voice—tragic and lyrical and slyly humorous in the Irish tradition, yet completely original—will be disappointed a little by these 15 stories [in A Lazy Eye].

For some reason, the weakest tales seem to come first. They begin with a novelistic amplitude and abruptly peter out, or they conclude shockingly but flatly. In "Bookworm," the narrator steals and shreds books; in "Possibilities," a woman catches a venereal disease from her lover; in "Rosa," the narrator's sister...