A long-haired woman moves into the priest's house and sets fire to his furniture. That Christmas, the electricity goes out. A forester mortgages his land and goes off to a seaside town looking for a wife. He finds a woman eating alone in the hotel. A farmer wakes half-naked and realises the money is almost gone. And in the title story, a priest waits on the altar for a bride and battles, all that wedding day, with his memories of a love affair. In her long-awaited second collection, Claire Keegan observes an Ireland wrestling with its past.

Walk the Blue Fields

Literature & Fiction

KEEGAN, CLAIRE

Literary

Faber&Faber

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. The evening is fine. In the sky a few early stars are shining of their own accord. She watches the dog licking the bowl clean. This dog will break her daughter's heart, she's sure of it. Claire Keegan's mesmeric story takes us into the heart of the Wicklow countryside, and of the farming family of Victor Deegan, with his 'three teenagers, the milking and the mortgage'. When Deegan finds a gun dog and gives it as a present to his only daughter, his wife is filled with foreboding at this seeming act of kindness. As the seasons pass, long-buried family secrets threaten to emerge. Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

The Forester's Daughter (Faber Stories)

Short Stories & Anthologies

Small Things Like These: The Irish Times readers' choice for best Irish book of the century

Small things like these: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022

Contemporary

Faber and Faber Ltd.

** A Book of the Year in The Times - The New Statesman - Observer - Financial Times - Irish Times - Irish Independent - Times Literary Supplement ** WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE AND THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE AND THE IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AT THE DALKEY LITERARY AWARDS'Exquisite.' Damon Galgut'Masterly.' The Times'Miraculous.' Herald'Astonishing.' Colm Toibin'Stunning.' Sunday Independent'Absolutely beautiful.' Douglas Stuart It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church.

It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas' house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in there care, begins to blossom. But there is something unspoken in this new household - where everything is so well tended to - and the summer must come to an end.\n** Adapted into the Oscar-nominated film adaptation, An Cailín Ciúin / The Quiet Girl **\nFrom the author of the Booker-shortlisted Small Things Like These, a heartbreaking, haunting story of childhood, loss and love by one of Ireland's most acclaimed writers.\n'A real jewel.' Irish Independent\n'A small miracle.' Sunday Times\n'A thing of finely honed beauty.' Guardian\n'Thrilling.' Richard Ford\n'As good as Chekhov.' David Mitchell

Foster: by the Booker-shortlisted author of Small Things Like These

Antarctica: ‘A genuine once-in-a-generation writer.’ THE TIMES

Genre Fiction

Small Things Like These: An Oprah Book Club Pick

Published to great critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, the iridescent stories in Claire Keegan's debut collection, Antarctica, have been acclaimed by The Observer to be "among the finest contemporary stories written recently in English." In "Antarctica," a married woman travels out of town to see what it's like to sleep with a man other than her husband. "Love in the Tall Grass" takes Cordelia down a coastal road on the last day of the twentieth century to keep a date with her lover that has been nine years in the waiting. "Stay Close to the Water's Edge" tells of a young Harvard student who is pitilessly humiliated by his homophobic stepfather on his birthday. Keegan's writing has a clear vision of unaffected truths and boldly explores a world where dreams, memory, and chance have crippling consequences for those involved. The stories are often dark and enveloped in a palpable atmosphere, and the reader feels that something "big" is going on in each of these carefully sculpted tales. The award-winning Antarctica, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001, and recipient of the prestigious Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the William Trevor Prize, and the Martin Healy Award, is a haunting debut. "These stories are diamonds." -- Emily Robichaud, Esquire "That Keegan has a knack for storytelling is proved many times over...." -- Caitlin Macy, The New York Times Book Review "[These] stories ... show Keegan to be an authentic talent with a gimlet eye and a distinctive voice." -- Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe "Reading these stories is like coming upon work of Ann Beattie or Raymond Carver at the start of their careers." -- Jerry Griswold, Los Angeles Times

Antarctica

GROVE PRESS

Product Description 
"A hypnotic and electrifying Irish tale that transcends country, transcends time." —Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers 
Small Things Like These is award-winning author Claire Keegan's landmark new novel, a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family 
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church. 
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers. 
 Review 
Praise for Small Things Like These: 
An NPR “Books We Love” of 2021 selection 
A Chicago Public Library “Best of the Best” of 2021 selection 
People Magazine’s “Book of the Week” 
A Publishers Weekly "Holiday Gift Guide 2021" Selection 
“For all her earlier accolades, Small Things Like These, Keegan’s first novel, enters the world this month with the shocking force of a debut…Over what would amount to a couple of chapters in another novel, Keegan manages to place her characters and her readers at the center of an essential human dilemma: Will we turn a blind eye to evil in our midst, or will we take some action against it, even if it consists of just one small thing? As Keegan’s concise, capacious new book demonstrates, little acts can lead to real change.”—Los Angeles Times 
“Keegan’s precisely considered details about character, setting, memory, and dramatic moment create a story you will want to read again and again. Her deceptively simple language is pitch-perfect.”—Boston Globe 
“This exquisite miniature of a novel somehow defies the gravitational pull of its grim subject to hover in a quotidian, luminous present. Details materialize with preternatural clarity. The milky light of a winter afternoon, mist on a river, a woman opening an oven door, a child taking her father’s hand: We see these things and feel their lingering presence as we are drawn into the life of an unassuming man in an unremarkable place.”—The Wall Street Journal 
“Claire Keegan…now gives us her best work yet. Small Things Like These is a short, wrenching, thoroughly brilliant novel mapping the path of one man's conscience, its torment and vacillation between two courses of action. Either one bears a price…Spare and potent, this is a remarkable story.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune 
“A sparse, breathtaking perfect gem of a novel.”—People 
“Small Things Like These is a gem of a slim novel about a family man faced with a moral decision… a deeply moving tale.”—Associated Press\n“Keegan captured and affected my whole attention. She draws a web of complicity around the convent’s activities that is chillingly mundane and brutally true. These kinds of places existed not just because of the cruelty of the people who ran them, but also because of the fear and selfishness of those who were willing to ignore them. Stunning. Just stunning.”—Catherine Whelan, NPR 
“The novel isn’t just an eloquent attack on [Magdalene] laundries, however. It is also a touching Christmas tale, genuinely reminiscent of the festive stories of O Henry and Charles Dickens; a novel that has been seeped in sherry and served by the fireside…As soon as you pick the novel up, it’s all over. The monumental power of Claire Keegan is that she can create these cuckoo-clock narratives where every single word seems to be a necessary contribution to the overall mechanism of the novel. She is all killer, no filler. …How lucky we are to have Keegan, a genuine once-in-a-generation writer whose dedication to her craft is as meticulous as it is masterly.”—The Times (UK) 
“Keegan distils the years of suffering and torture that went on across the coun

Small Things Like These (Oprah's Book Club)

Foster

Amazon.com Review\nAn Amazon Best Book of November 2022:In Keegan's latest novella, a girl is dropped off at a farm in rural Ireland to live indefinitely with relatives while her mother awaits the birth of her youngest child. There, young Ann experiences a level of love, care, and attention she didn't know she was missing. And, in her blooming, her foster parents begin to come to terms with events in their past. Somehow, what Keegan doesn't put on the page manages to convey as much as what she does. Between what's written and what's not breathes an exquisite, tender, and heart-expanding story, as Keegan creates more magic in 128 pages than others could do in 928 pages. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor\nAn international bestseller and one of The Times’ “Top 50 Novels Published in the 21st Century,” Claire Keegan’s piercing contemporary classic Foster is a heartbreaking story of childhood, loss, and love; now released as a standalone book for the first time ever in the US 
It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas’ house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom. But there is something unspoken in this new household—where everything is so well tended to—and this summer must soon come to an end. 
Winner of the prestigious Davy Byrnes Award and published in an abridged version in the New Yorker,this internationally bestselling contemporary classic is now available for the first time in the US in a full, standalone edition. A story of astonishing emotional depth, Foster showcases Claire Keegan’s great talent and secures her reputation as one of our most important storytellers.

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