Walk the Blue Fields
Claire Keegan
(Author)
Description
Claire Keegan's brilliant debut collection, Antarctica, was a Los Angeles Times Book 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 Böouml;ll'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.
A masterful portrait of a country wrestling with its past and of individuals eking out their futures, Walk the Blue Fields is a breathtaking collection from one of Ireland's greatest talents, and a resounding articulation of all the yearnings of the human heart.
Product Details
| Publisher | Grove Press, Black Cat |
| Publish Date | June 28, 2008 |
| Pages | 192 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Paperback / softback |
| EAN/UPC | 9780802170491 |
| Dimensions | 8.3 X 5.8 X 0.5 inches | 0.4 pounds |
About the Author
Claire Keegan was raised on a farm in Wicklow, Ireland. Her stories have won The Kilkenny Prize, The Martin Healy Prize, The Macaulay Fellowship, The William Trevor Prize and The Francis MacManus Award, among others. A former Wingate Scholar, she lives in rural Ireland.
Reviews
"Keegan is that rarest of writers-someone I will always want to read."--Richard Ford, Best Books of 2007 pick in The Irish Times
"Perfect short stories . . . flawless structure . . . What makes this collection a particular joy is the run and pleasure of the language."--Anne Enright, winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize, The Guardian
"A young Irish prodigy . . . Writing in a striking, Celtic-slanted prose, Keegan exposes the hearts, hopes and dreams of those in the Irish countryside. . . . The collection unfolds powerfully, with stories that chronicle an isolated young woman's discovery of seemingly magical powers, incest in a desperate Irish farm family and the disintegration of marriages. . . . astonishing."--Alan Cheuse, NPR's All Things Considered
"The best stories here are so textured and moving, so universal but utterly distinctive, that it's easy to imagine readers savoring them many years from now. And to imagine critics, far in the future, deploying lofty new terms to explain what it is that makes Keegan's fiction work."--Maud Newton, The New York Times Book Review
"[Keegan's]... collections have drawn comparisons to William Trevor and Anton Chekhov ... [She] crafts... stories out of small details and insight...like poetry... Claire Keegan is the real deal." --Keith Donohue, "You Must Read This" NPR.com
"[A] stunning second collection . . . Keegan's stories are the literary counterparts to Picasso's Blue Period paintings. . . . Keegan's first collection, "Antarctica," led to comparisons with Raymond Carver, but Annie Proulx, with her distilled, poetic prose and attunement to remote landscapes, is a closer match."--Heller McAlpin, San Francisco Chronicle
"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
"Hope lurks somewhere in almost all [Keegan's] stories. . . . You start out on the paths of these simple, rural lives, and not long into each, some bit of rage or unforgivable transgression bubbles up . . . Then the truly amazing happens: Life goes on, limps along, heads for some new chance at beauty."--Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Walk the Blue Fields may be among the best books you will read this year. . . . Keegan's writing offers stark, intelligent flourishes and a look into the heart of rural Ireland, gurgling with desolate undercurrents."--Vikram Johri, St. Petersburg Times
"Walk the Blue Fields, the collection by young Irish writer Claire Keegan, was my first encounter with her work. I hope it won't be the last. In story after story, Ms. Keegan works in a striking Celtic-slanted prose, bringing news of life in the Irish countryside and exposing hearts and hopes and dreams of a number of troubled country contemporaries."--Alan Cheuse, The Dallas Morning News
"Keegan's poetic prose, spot-on dialogue, and well paced plot twists keep the pages turning through sadness, grief, rage, and compromise."--Publishers Weekly
"These stories are pure magic. They add, using grace, intelligence and an extraordinary ear for rhythm, to the distinguished tradition of the Irish short story. They deal with Ireland now, but have a sort of timeless edge to them, making Claire Keegan both an original and a canonical presence in Irish fiction."--Colm Toibin, author of The Master and Mothers and
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