Review by Booklist Review
Internationally acclaimed Irish author Keegan (Foster, 2022) offers a master class in precisely crafted short fiction in this collection of three tales. Take the title story, in which a jilted groom conducts his daily life on what would have been his wedding day. In recalling his brief love affair from its mundane start to its shattering conclusion, Cathal is unnerved to find hard truths about himself reflected in his soon-to-be-ex-lover's eyes. The second offering follows a young woman newly ensconced in a prestigious writer's residency cottage, only to have her reverie interrupted by a brash German professor whose wife was once rejected by the same program. When his threats escalate, the writer exacts revenge using the only methods available to her. In "Antarctica," an otherwise happily married woman embarks on a longed-for one-night stand with disastrous results. Keegan takes a Goldilocks approach to revelatory details: not too many, not too few, with only the most satisfying included to build complete and completely complex worlds. Amid quotidian descriptions of furniture and cats, food and houseplants, Keegan's trenchant observations explode like bombshells, bringing menace and retribution to tales of romance delayed, denied, and even deadly.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Keegan (Foster) imbues the three stories in her exquisite collection with the keen awareness of human fallibility characteristic of her previous work. The title story is set on a momentous day in the life of Cathal, whom the reader meets while he shuffles through dull office work and contemplates his own foibles. By the time he's home alone with his cat and a microwave dinner, he's revealed himself to be a lonely and hateful man who, because of his lack of generosity, has just lost something irretrievable. In "The Long and Painful Death," set at a remote seaside writer's retreat, a woman cleverly repurposes a middle-aged German professor's crusty misogyny for her own creative ends. "Antarctica" is the terrifying story of a happily married woman's ill-fated quest for a moment of sexual fulfillment with another man during the Christmas holidays. Each of Keegan's male characters is culpable in whatever trouble they get themselves into. Her women have agency, but are shackled by the poisonous attitudes of the men they encounter. Written over a span of 20 years, these pristine stories demonstrate the author's genius for economy. Keegan says in a paragraph what other writers take entire novels to reveal. (Nov.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A collection of stories that explore relationships through a series of fraught encounters. The three stories in this slim book from Keegan, one of Ireland's most celebrated writers, examine the power dynamics between men and women through relationships, chance encounters, and sex. These stories, which span Keegan's career, have been collected and repackaged in the wake of her Booker Prize--shortlisted novel, Small Things Like These, and the American publication of her novella Foster. The final story, "Antarctica," in which a married woman seeks out sex while away from her family, was originally published in 1999, while the title story first appeared only last year. The stories have been carefully selected, however, to be read together; all three powerfully probe the problem of gender relations in modern Ireland and England. "Antarctica," the darkest story, shows what lengths a man might go to in pursuit of a woman, while "So Late in the Day" explores more unconscious expressions of misogyny. Its central character, Cathal, is an unremarkable office worker whose resentment and even hatred of his fiancee, Sabine, is also depressingly unremarkable and leads to the collapse of their relationship. In the strongest story, "The Long and Painful Death," a female writer on a retreat in Heinrich Böll's seaside house must fend off the intrusions of a judgmental male scholar. Unlike the other two pieces in the collection, this one ends on a high note, with the writer sloughing off the man's unwanted attentions and transforming them into art. In all three stories, however, Keegan precisely observes the subtle dynamics between men and women, be they strangers or romantic partners, and how those dynamics can shift and curdle with little warning. Compact but deep explorations of human vulnerability from a master of the form. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
