The Boatman and Other Stories

“I know of no writer on either side of the
Atlantic who is better at exploring the human spirit under assault than Billy
O’Callaghan.”—Robert Olen Butler

The prizewinning Irish short-story writer and author of the
highly praised novel, My Coney Island
Baby, delivers his most accomplished book of short fiction to date—a
poignant story collection that “grips from the opening page” (Bernard
MacLaverty). 
These
are twelve poignant, quietly dazzling, and carefully crafted stories that
explore the resiliency of the human heart and its ability to keep beating in
the wake of bereavement, violence, lost love, and incomparable trauma and
grief.
 Spanning
a century and two continents, from the muddy fields of Ireland to a hotel room
in Paris, a dingy bar in Segovia to an airplane bound for Taipei, The Boatman and Other Stories follows an
unforgettable cast of characters. Three gunshots on the Irish border define the
course of a young man’s life; a writer clings fast to a star-crossed affair
with a woman who has never been fully within his reach; a fisherman accustomed
to hard labor rolls up his sleeves to dig a grave for his child; and a pair of
newlyweds embark on their first adventure, living wild on the deserted Beginish
Island.
 

Ranging
from the elegiac to the brutally confrontational, these densely layered tales
reveal the quiet heroism and gentle dignity of ordinary life. Billy O’Callaghan
is a master celebrant of the smallness of the human flame against the dark: its
strength and its steady brightness.