A mini-masterpiece . . . There is nothing demonstrative about this prose, which is not spare but restrained, strategically discharging touches of eloquence only when needed, and not through a profusion of descriptive detail, but through choice adjectives and verbs that just stray from the literal . . . Keegan stands almost without rival.” — Irish Times (UK) The freedom and range of Keegan's first collection, Antarctica, has narrowed to a town, a house, a few fields; and this stillness gives a close, lapidary beauty to the prose. Keegan is a writer who is instinctively cherished and praised. These stories are hard won. There are massive tensions held in balance here, a feat she manages through flawless structure and the unassailable tragedy of her characters' lives. the trees are tall and here the wind is strangely human. A tender speech is combing through the willows. In a bare whisper, the elms lean.’ 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. Close to the airport, planes appear in the sky. Eugene parks the car and helps you find the desk. Neither one of you knows exactly what to do. They look at your passport, take your suitcase and tell you where to go. You step onto moving stairs that frighten you. There's a coffee shop where Eugene tries to make you eat a fry but you don't want to eat or stay and keep him company.

Please consider this gorgeous book about Ireland today if you're looking for a non gross and stereotyping way to celebrate the day! Keegan’s output is scarce and her stories are as spare as they are heartrending, whittled down to the essential. If she has published anything that isn’t perfect, I haven’t seen it… More than most books four times its size, Foster does several of the things we ask of great literature: It expands our world, diverting our attention outward, and it opens up our hearts and minds. This is a small book with a miraculously outsized impact.”— NPR Our narrator receives a phone call early the next morning, a visitor wishing to present himself - he's actually outside the cottage. Our un-named narrator puts him off until 8 p.m., and what follows are the small preparations and the ways in which she occupies the free time of her first day. But it is beautifully done. I think Keegan with-holds the woman's name, because it then becomes so easy for the reader to slip herself into the story. A small extract: Keegan writes with such grace and accuracy that it is impossible not to be drawn into each world she creates. Walk the Blue Fields is a superb collection in which each story is a treat; together, they are pure gold.” – Big Issue There are tears there but she is too proud to blink and let one fall. If she blinked, he would take her hand and take her away from this place. This, at least, is what he tells himself. It's what she once wanted but two people hardly ever want the same thing at any given point in life. It is sometimes the hardest part of being human."In stories brimming with Gothic shadows and ancient hurts, Claire Keegan tells of “a rural world of silent men and wild women who, for the most part, make bad marriages, and vivid, uncomprehending children” (Anne Enright, The Guardian). In the never-before-published story “The Long and Painful Death,” a writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll’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. If the mother superior’s story is left untold, so is that of the girl found shivering in the coal shed. “I’m not saying she isn’t a person,’ says Keegan. “I’m saying that the book isn’t her story. And maybe that’s deeply appropriate, because so many women and girls were peripheral figures. They weren’t central. Not even to their own families, not even to their own parents.” In the title story, probably the best one, a priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage, but over time we realize he once had had an affair with the bride. This leads him, of course, to intense reflection/grief on those memories and his life choices, even as he observes her struggles through the whole ceremony:

These magnificent stories are like a smoothly sanded wood surface, all paint stripped away to show the natural growth of the timber, the glowing colour of the tree's inner life, the bare truth without overblown decoration. Bauhaus, not Baroque. You go out and close the door. In the bathroom youwash your hands, your face, compose yourself once more. In “The Long and Painful Death,” a writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll’s old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder whose ulterior motives emerge as the night progresses. In the title story, a priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage—and battles his memories of a love affair that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life. And in “Dark Horses,” a man seeks solace at the bottom of a bottle as he mourns both his empty life and his lost love. Sanırım porsuk ağacı gördüğüm zaman üçüncü okumamı da yapmış olacağım. Çünkü onun da adı kitapta geçmekte:)

In spare and exact strokes, Keegan transforms these domestic circumstances into universal mirrors. Easy to devour in a single sitting but likely to haunt you for years.” — Oprah Daily, Best Short-Story Collection of 2023 Astonishing and beautiful. Her writing is intimately tuned to the landscape, language and ancient storytelling tradition of Ireland. . . . With a few crisp stark sentences, she opens whole worlds into which her reader falls, fully enthralled, captivated and amazed until her very last word.” –Alice Greenway, author of White Ghost Girls 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 Sons A book that makes you excited to discover everything its author has ever written… Absolutely beautiful.”— Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain A man goes into a bar to drink away his sadness as his lover has left him. He dreams about her returning. Meanwhile, there is solace in beer talk.

Both stories are well-written but I also didn’t feel anything strongly towards either of them. They’re not nearly as compelling as some of the others or seem to be about anything. Now you stand on the landing trying to remember happiness, a good day, an evening, a kind word.’ - from ’The Parting Gift’ On her wedding night she felt springs coming up like mortal sins through the mattress.’ - from ’The Forester’s Daughterupped the rating from 4.5 to 5. After thinking about these stories during the past few days, I realize that they have lingered in a very good way. My feelings for this collection are really unchanged except perhaps that discussing each story with others has helped me to define better why I like each one. Keegan writes of Ireland, the people, the land, the elements, fables and reality. I'm sure I will be reading this many more times. Once again — Claire Keegan’s outstanding immersive writing is layered deeply with disturbing complexity. On the edge of the road, a small, plump hen walked purposefully along, her head extended and her feet clambering over the stones. She was such a pretty hen, her plumage edged in white, as though she’d powdered herself before she’d stepped out of the house. She hopped down onto the grassy verge and, without looking left or right, raced across the road, then stopped, re-adjusted her wings, and made a clear line for the cliff. The woman watched how the hen kept her head down when she reached the edge and how, without a moment’s hesitation, she jumped over it. The woman stopped the car and walked to the spot from which the hen had flung herself. A part of her did not want to look over the cliff... The title story paints a variation on this emotional double-blind, this time for a priest officiating at the wedding of a woman with whom he has had a passionate affair. A priest might seem an anachronistic figure, but the respects (and disrespects) paid to the character represent a rural Ireland which still exists today. Indeed, while on the surface ‘Walk the Blue Fields’ appears to present us with a clash of the old and the new Irelands, closer examination reveals it to be quite a traditional story. The ‘Chinaman’s cures’ are a modern update of the Irish predilection for healers and bonesetters, while the story’s frank depiction of sexual jealousy merely externalises a recurrent theme of Irish fiction that has been couched for too long underneath unwieldy metaphors. For all of this, however, it is the brilliantly rendered dinner scene which makes ‘Walk the Blue Fields’ one of the gems of this collection, particularly in terms of the interplay among the wedding guests and in lines such as ‘the priest cuts into the lamb’, which betray a knowing irony in light of the character’s inability to uphold his oath of celibacy.

In her bedroom your mother is moving things around, opening and closing doors. You wonder what it will be like for her when you leave. Part of you doesn't care. She talks through the door.

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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 Böll'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. Dunagore was a strange place without so much as a tree, nor a withered leaf to be seen in autumn, just the shivering bogland and all the gulls wheeling around, screeching under restless clouds. The landscape looked metal, all sturdy and everlasting to Margaret, coming from a place of oak and ash, it was without substance.’