Claire Keegan’s tightly constructed short stories never cease to enthrall me. This collection poses no exception. Each story takes its own life. They do not take long to read, but oh, they take long to ponder! A couple of these stories are in other collections, but each one provided a treat at the end of a workday.
My favorite in this anthology is the last story: “Night of the Quicken Trees.” It tells of two misanthropes who live next door to each other in Clare, Ireland. Each have their respective inner demons, but they uncork a strange form love with each other. They even reconcile themselves, in a small way, with their social world of their nearby town. Will their bliss last, or will their paranoia win out in the end? As always in Keegan’s writing, the narrative only resolves on the last page. Only the last paragraph brings every detail of the short story into harmony, and the characters become all too human.
Walk the Blue Fields
By Claire Keegan
Copyright (c) 2007
Black Cat
ISBN13 9780802170491
Page Count: 168
Genre: Short Stories
www.amazon.com