YES! I KNOW IT’S DECEMBER! (But I’m determined to finish my #NovNov reviews. Also, there’s more to come).
Claire Keegan occupied a good part of my 2022 #NovNov efforts, and I was rewarded – I love her stories. This year’s Keegan selections – The Forester’s Daughter and So Late in the Day – were fantastic (actually, they’re probably short stories, not novellas, but I have both as neat, printed books so….).
Both stories tell of men and the women they marry. One is a modern story, the other set in the seventies. One is firmly styled in the here and now, the other has a fairy-tale quality. Both stories examine the cost of pride.
In The Forester’s Daughter, we meet a farming family, headed by Victor Deegan. Victor has ‘three teenagers, the milking and the mortgage’, and a deeply dissatisfied wife. Victor finds a dog and gives it as a present to his only daughter. The dog is a harbringer of change in the Deegan family.
…Deegan gives the dog to the first child he sees. It happens to be his youngest and it happens to be the girl’s birthday. And so the girl, whose father has never given her so much as a tender word, embraces the retriever and with it the possibility that Deegan loves her, after all.
So Late in the Day tells the story of Cathal, who, on a bus trip home from work, ponders the emptiness of a long weekend ahead. His mind agitates over a woman named Sabrine, with whom he could have spent his life, had he acted differently.
How does Keegan do it? These taut and searing little stories, brimming with what I would class as ‘overwhelming’ emotions (pride, shame and desire)?
And none of it at the expense of descriptions that I want to immerse myself in. The oak trees in The Forester’s Daughter are almost a standalone character (granted, I’m a bit obsessed with oaks at the moment).
It is autumn. Brown oak leaves are twisting in dry spasms around the yard.
The difference between the two stories is that one had an ending that made me laugh mirthlessly, the other left me sad and reflective.
I’ll say no more other than the fact that I am a Keegan devotee.
4/5 (for both)
Excellent summations! I loved both these stories, too. Have you read her collections? Also: if you like Keegan try Mary Costello’s novella Academy Street and her short story collection The China Factory.
I LOVED Academy Street (read many years ago) but had forgotten about Costello. Need to revisit.
I have read one of Keegan’s collections (Antarctica – found the titular story deeply disturbing) and I have Walk the blue Fields in the TBR stack. I saw Keegan speak at this years Melbourne Writers Festival… let’s just say she was memorable!
Academy Street would probably make my top 10 books of all time! Keegan is inspired by the late John McGahern, my favourite Irish writer, so you might like his work too. That They May Face the Rising Sun (also published under the title By the Lake) is probably the closest to her style in the sense it’s very rural.
I had plans to read a Calvino for #NovNov so (hopefully) I’ll be doing that in December too…
I’ve been hopeless this year! Still have some #NovNov reading to finish and reviews to go (including The Sitter by Angela O’Keefe, which I think you recommended??). Also have my German Lit Month reviews to write. Truly hopeless!
It’s just a difficult time, Kate. We are all on hyper-alert in case our friends say or post something that conflicts with our polarised opinions, and it’s very stressful trying not to damage long-term relationships.
I am in the odd situation that WP sends me comments for some blogs but not notifications of posts. I flick through the comments when I can to see what is going on. I haven’t read Keegan but am always impressed (ok, intimidated) by Kim’s knowledge of Irish Lit. But in this case Lisa’s response caught my attention. She might be relieved to know that here at least I am working very, very hard to keep my polarised opinions to myself.
Trust me, Bill, I appreciate it, I am struggling too!
I’m afraid that I couldn’t wait for NovNov to read Keegan’s novella. The minute I had it, I had to read it.