Each of her's tales is like a poem in which nothing is lost and everything is delicately savoured and, despite the time frame, they are timeless.

Claire Keegan is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors. Her short stories each present a world of people who are at risk, taking chances, living lives under pressure of real or imagined horror or stress. Occasionally there are moments of happiness amidst the sadness. Her people take full advantage of these moments, swallow them whole as if to live on them for a while. This writer is brilliant and the stories are surprising, unsettling, and for the most part dark. Women figure prominently in this collection, but with no heavy-handed feminist motifs that I could discern. Also, if you like neat, tidy, and generally upbeat endings you won't find them here! In fact, you won't find upbeat here at all. And, did I say unsettling? Many of the stories filled me with dread, worrying about what might happen next. At times I felt like I was standing at the edge of a precipice when suddenly the story ended and most of my fears were assuaged, if only because whatever I dreaded had been passed over. But sometimes the dread followed through (especially in the first story). The writing is beautiful, the stories are original and surreally realistic. She thought of Antarctica, the snow and ice and the bodies of dead explorers. Then she thought of hell, and then eternity.”Keegan's first collection of short stories, Antarctica (1999), won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the William Trevor Prize. [4] [5] Her second collection of short stories, Walk the Blue Fields, was published in 2007. Keegan's 'long, short story' [6] Foster won the 2009 Davy Byrnes Short Story Award. [7] Foster appeared in the 15 February 2010 issue of New Yorker; it was later published by Faber and Faber in longer form. Foster is now included as a text for the Irish Leaving Certificate. [8] It was adapted for film by writer/director Colm Bairéad in 2021 and released as An Cailín Ciúin ( The Quiet Girl) in May 2022. Those kept in the confines of the laundries were often described as ‘fallen women’. Discuss what is meant by this and how the women in Irish communities were powerless against the church. The collection ends with a psychologically brutal story of a couple after their young daughter goes missing, which is one of the finest stories in the collection but will surely make any parent of children squirm in painful empathy. While he took charge of dinner, she sat on the couch with the cat on her lap and watched a documentary on Antarctica, miles of snow, penguins shuffling against subzero winds, Captain Cook sailing down to find the lost continent. He came out with a tea towel draped across his shoulder and handed her a glass of chilled wine.

Este es el primer libro que leo de esta autora y también el primero que ella editó. Admito que la idea de que el paisaje de Irlanda se vea reflejado en sus páginas fue lo primero que me atrajo, pero jamás pensé encontrarme con un estilo así de crudo. Claire Keegan is a real writer. Her will is impossible to resist. Her stories are pure. Their effect is cumulative. Their scope is stunning. Ms. Keegan is an enlightened being who in another age might’ve been a saint or a scientist, who happens to write with the force of a locomotive.”—Matthew Klam, author of Sam the Cat and Other Stories You want to sneak off to lunch and get drunk?” He pushed her into the booth and kissed her, a long, wet kiss. “I woke this morning with your scent in the sheets,” he said. “It was beautiful.” You’re a very generous lover,” she said afterward, passing him the cigarette. “You’re very generous period.” The integrity of emotion Keegan achieves, her combination of male and female personas and perspectives is at times reminiscent of Raymond Carver or Annie Proulx.”— The Irish TimesIn "Antarctica," a married woman travels out of town to see what it's like to sleep with a man other than her husband. "Love in the Tall Grass" takes Cordelia down a coastal road on the last day of the twentieth century to keep a date with her lover that has been nine years in the waiting. "Stay Close to the Water's Edge" tells of a young Harvard student who is pitilessly humiliated by his homophobic stepfather on his birthday. Keegan's writing has a clear vision of unaffected truths and boldly explores a world where dreams, memory, and chance have crippling consequences for those involved. The stories are often dark and enveloped in a palpable atmosphere, and the reader feels that something "big" is going on in each of these carefully sculpted tales. Keegan’s writing is so sharp you’ll swear you could cut your finger on it. Like a spider with words as her welcoming web, she grabs the reader with the rather soft writing and astonishing imagery only for them to discover they’re fully trapped in the glory of her creations too late to dodge the emotional blows that sneak up on you. Such is the case with the title story—which makes for one of the finest opening tales I’ve read in a long time—about a woman who heads to the city with the goal of having a brief affair with a stranger. While you have a general unease about the situation, it isn’t until you’ve let your guard down that the ending strikes with such sudden ferocity it practically leaves you gasping for breath.