So Late In The Day by Claire Keegan (2023), published by Faber & Faber
What it's about: Office worker Cathal reflects on life as he returns to his empty house and thinks about his fiancée Sabine who's moved out. "That was the problem with women falling out of love; the veil of romance fell away from their eyes, and they looked in and could read you," observes Keegan. Has his lack of generosity ruined what might have been?
Why should you read it? Keegan is a celebrated master of the short story. "Elegance is saying just enough. And I do believe that the reader completes the story," she says. Yet again her shape shifting words open up space for our minds to inhabit.
Why we’ll be hearing more about Keegan this spring… Small Things Like These, her Booker short-listed novella, will see its cinematic adaptation, produced by Cillian Murphy, opens this year's Berlin Film Festival, the first Irish film to open the prestigious Berlinale.
What the critics say... "Across her oeuvre, Keegan illuminates violence better than almost anyone, avoiding easy didacticism. She pulls apart the strands of misogyny in individuals and institutions, diagnosing the same problem in both." - Jack Sheehan, Washington Post
For readers of… Wendy Cope’s The Orange and other poems, John Boyne’s Water, Kristen Roupenian’s dating horror, Cat Person.
So Late In The Day by Claire Keegan (2023) is published by Faber & Faber
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