In the title story, probably the best one, a priest waits at the altar to perfor Fragments of his time…cross his mind. How lovely it was to know her intimately. She said self-knowledge lay at the far side of speech. The purpose of conversation was to find out what, to some extent, you already knew. She believed that in every conversation, an invisible bowl existed. Talk was the art of placing decent words into the bowl and taking others out. In a loving conversation, you discovered yourself in the kindest possible way, and at the end the bowl was, once again, empty.’ - from ’Walk the Blue Fields A young man from Harvard spends his 21st birthday with his mother and millionaire stepfather at a posh penthouse by the sea. What matters is not the quality of the food but the company at table. He looks longingly at the sea which brings to mind his grandmother’s love for the sea and what it taught her. It’s impossible to overstate the talent of this Irish writer. Her stories are neither happy nor sad; she taps into some unnamed emotion that is more true, more pure . . . Gift this perfect little triptych to everyone on your holiday list.” —The Center for Fiction Close to the airport, planes appear in the sky. Eugene parks the car and helps you find the desk. Neither one of you knows exactly what to do. They look at your passport, take your suitcase and tell you where to go. You step onto moving stairs that frighten you. There's a coffee shop where Eugene tries to make you eat a fry but you don't want to eat or stay and keep him company.

Claire Keegan’s brilliant debut collection, Antarctica, was a Los Angeles TimesBook of the Year, and earned her resounding accolades on both sides of the Atlantic. Now she has delivered her next, much-anticipated book, Walk the Blue Fields, an unforgettable array of quietly wrenching stories about despair and desire in the timeless world of modern-day Ireland. In the never-before-published story "The Long and Painful Death,” a writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll’s old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder, whose ulterior motives only emerge as the night progresses. In the title story, a priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage and, during the ceremony and the festivities that follow, battles his memories of a love affair with the bride that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life; later that night, he finds an unlikely answer in the magical healing powers of a seer. These short fictions by the Irish author Claire Keegan haven’t a style so much as a microclimate, a chill mist blowing in on a hard wind off the sea. . . . The author’s own storytelling powers have darkened and matured since her first collection, as she takes confident command of her craft.” –Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe Men and women in the stories seem incapable of overcoming the gaping void of miscommunication derived from a stifling home-life tradition and appear either as eccentric and damaged or domineering and abusive.The freedom and range of Keegan's first collection, Antarctica, has narrowed to a town, a house, a few fields; and this stillness gives a close, lapidary beauty to the prose. Keegan is a writer who is instinctively cherished and praised. These stories are hard won. There are massive tensions held in balance here, a feat she manages through flawless structure and the unassailable tragedy of her characters' lives. There’s a line in Small Things Like These in which Furlong wonders if he and his wife would be better off if they had a bit of time to spare, “or would they just lose the run of themselves?” In a sense the story is an exploration of just that happening. Is Keegan herself worried about losing the run of herself? “Well, I’m sure that I will have some public events and some people to socialise with and horses to train and all kinds of other things to do,” she says. “I’m not somebody who finds it difficult to find or make work.” The best collection of short stories by any Irish writer in recent years. These are strange, haunting, sometimes funny tales, utterly unique in their way of seeing life. I can’t remember the last time I felt such awe when reading the work of a new writer.” – The Week Because a great short story IS like the roar of wind and waves in our ears, the sting of salt on our eyes and lips. It tumbles us into an unknown world, propelling us towards the edge of new possibilities, towards new ways of seeing. Once again — Claire Keegan’s outstanding immersive writing is layered deeply with disturbing complexity.

All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.I think you'd rather have to be Irish, preferably rural Irish, to really get everything there is to get out of the 8 stories in this collection, however. Tight, potent . . . [Keegan] has chosen her details carefully. Everything means something . . . Her details are so natural that readers might not immediately understand their significance. The stories grow richer with each read . . . [These stories] have new and powerful things to say about the ever-mystifying, ever-colliding worlds of contemporary Irish women and the men who stand in their way.”— Minneapolis Star Tribune A man goes into a bar to drink away his sadness as his lover has left him. He dreams about her returning. Meanwhile, there is solace in beer talk.

Please consider this gorgeous book about Ireland today if you're looking for a non gross and stereotyping way to celebrate the day! Reading Irish-born Claire Keegan is like succumbing to a drug: eerie, hallucinogenic, time-stopping. Her simplest sentences envelop the brain (and all the senses) in a deep, fully dimensional dream . . . Each story is as substantive as a novel, and as breathtaking . . . Unforgettable.” — San Francisco Chronicle In spare and exact strokes, Keegan transforms these domestic circumstances into universal mirrors. Easy to devour in a single sitting but likely to haunt you for years.” — Oprah Daily, Best Short-Story Collection of 2023In the The Parting Gift, a young woman flees from a terrible past embodied in the farmland that her father has cultivated with mute vileness. He’s not a terrible human being, necessarily, but he is gruff and selfish, maybe to be seen as a traditional (which is to say selfish, patriarchal) Irish male. He yells at her for her spending “my money on roses,” and so flowers play an important part in making meaning for her sad life. It’s enough to allow her to contemplate giving up the creative writing teaching she has done for years. She currently has a fellowship at Pembroke College, Cambridge, as part of an exchange with Trinity, Dublin. “I really did spend a good deal of the last decade going deeply into how creative writing could be taught, and seeing what I could and couldn’t do there,” she says. “And I feel I’ve come out the other end of that now. I’ll probably just stay at my desk for the next decade.” He shrugs and goes into the room he shares with your father. You drag the suitcase downstairs. Your mother hasn't washed the dishes. She is standing there at the door with a bottle of holy water. She shakes some of this water on you. Some of it gets in your eyes. Eugene comes down with the car keys.

In the title story, probably the best one, a priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage, but over time we realize he once had had an affair with the bride. This leads him, of course, to intense reflection/grief on those memories and his life choices, even as he observes her struggles through the whole ceremony:A master class in precisely crafted short fiction . . . Keegan’s trenchant observations explode like bombshells, bringing menace and retribution to tales of romance delayed, denied, and even deadly.” — Booklist, starred review