Monument Media Press

In the 1950s and 1960s, the ‘American parcel’ was a feature of Irish life. Irish people who emigrated to the USA and elsewhere would help out the family members left behind by sending home parcels of cast-off clothing and other goods like soaps and magazines.

These gifts were eagerly awaited, and helped clothe growing children in an era of extreme shortages where there was little money available. The term ‘American parcel’ was used to describe any such package that came back from abroad, from the UK and other places as well as the USA. In our house, our ‘American parcels’ came from Singapore, from a much-loved aunt whose husband was stationed with the British Army in what was then Malaya.

I thought of the term again when I was putting together this small collection of short stories for this chapbook. I wanted a common thread, difficult to find sometimes without shoehorning the odd story into a group where it doesn’t quite fit. These four stories seemed the best grouping, set as they are in the USA, a place I visit frequently and know well. So, ‘American Parcel’ it is, four seemingly unrelated stories but with a common theme of location, and with all four featuring solitary men and their views of the world.

Aged 61, out of shape and ill-prepared, one man paddled 3,185km on the Yukon River, from its source to the sea. For most of the journey he was naked and alone…

Read this incredible true story account written first hand by Dermot Higgins and with all profits very generously being donated to Pieta.

Some secrets can’t stay hidden away forever.

Kate returns to her favourite seaside village on the southern coast of Ireland to forget her past… but an island trip reveals there is more to boat rides than spotting porpoises. Unwillingly complicit in a secret, her ambitions become thwarted by a stalker who cannot be charged for his crime, threatening her new position, friendships, and romance…

A new pandemic, an idiot in the White House and a tyrant in the Kremlin, a vaccine in the water turning white people black, and way too many spies for one small Irish town.

It’s 2030, and a new pandemic is sweeping America, but the black population seems to have a natural immunity to the virus. Slow-witted President Donald Daniels orders his team to urgently find a new vaccine, one that can be secretly added to the water supply to overcome a growing anti-vax sentiment.

In Boyle, in the West of Ireland, a small laboratory develops a vaccine but one of their scientists has concerns about its remote potential to turn white-skinned people black.

The concerns are ignored in the rush to get to market. As the world turns black, Russian and American spies converge on Boyle to try to get their hands on the formula for an antidote, but the canny locals aren’t easily fooled. Russian President Zhadnyy has stopped making public appearances, and Daniels wonders at the effect on property prices now that everybody could be living in a black neighbourhood.