Walk the Blue Fields
Stories
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4.5 • 19 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The second collection of “exquisite stories” (The Guardian) from the author of Small Things Like These, whose award-winning works of fiction have sold over two million copies worldwide
Winner of the prestigious Edge Hill Prize and the second story collection in Claire Keegan’s bestselling body of work, Walk the Blue Fields was first published in 2007 to critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. In “The Long and Painful Death,” a writer awarded a stay to work in Henrich Böll’s old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder whose motive emerge as the night progresses. In the title story, a priest waiting to perform a marriage battles his memories of a lost love, an affair that made him question all to which he has dedicated his life.
A masterful portrait of a country wrestling with its past, Walk the Blue Fields is a breathtaking collection from one of the world’s greatest fiction writers and a resounding articulation of all the yearnings of the human heart.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Seven foreboding tales from Keegan (Antarctica) examine family, buried secrets and forbidden love in contemporary rural Ireland. In the title story, a priest questions his calling as he performs the wedding ceremony of a girl he once loved; after marrying her off to a lesser man, laments that "two people hardly ever want the same thing at any given point in life." "The Forester's Daughter" follows a tragic chain of events prompted by a woman who agrees to marry against her better instincts "because if she said no, the question might never be asked of her again." The final and strongest story centers on Margaret Flusk, a superstitious woman retreating from a personal tragedy into the farmhouse of her recently deceased cousin, who was a priest, and with whom she shared an abiding love. Word of her mysterious ability to heal soon gets out to the parish, breaking her isolation decisively. The more whimsical narratives fall a little flat (they're also brief), but in the longer, stronger pieces, Keegan's poetic prose, spot-on dialogue and well paced plot twists keep the pages turning through sadness, grief, rage and compromise.
