Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDGE HILL SHORT STORY PRIZE

‘One of the best collections you’ll read this year’ Sunday Times
‘Wild, witty stories . . . Exhilarating’ Observer

In this rapturous story collection we encounter a ragbag of west of Ireland characters, many on the cusp between love and catastrophe, heartbreak and epiphany, resignation and hope. These stories affirm Kevin Barry as one of the world’s most accomplished and gifted writers, and show an Ireland in a condition of great flux but also as a place where older rhythms, and an older magic, somehow persist.

Publisher Review

The master short story teller turns messy emotions into riveting tales of wounded Irish folk . . . One of the best collections you'll read this year * * Sunday Times * * Wild, witty stories . . . The west of Ireland teems with canny characters and vivid language . . . Darkly glimmering . . . Their language is exhilarating, its verve evoking the very best of Barry's compatriots while further carving out a territory that's all his own * * Observer * * These are brilliant and vivid and uproarious stories. It's a rare writer who can call a tune like Kevin Barry -- LISA McINERNEY Barry often writes with sonorous wisdom . . . but as readers of his grimly hilarious novels will know, his language is just as precise when it is in the service of comedy . . . Exhilaratingly funny and poignant fables -- Jake Kerridge * * Sunday Telegraph * * These playful, serious and beautifully crafted stories allow Barry to experiment as we need great writers to do -- SARAH MOSS * * Irish Times * * The third short-story collection from a stylist to savour brings more exhilarating, darkly witty tales of oddballs yearning after love and enchantment in the wild west of Ireland * * Guardian, 50 hottest new books everyone should read * * An extraordinary writer . . . In his short stories Barry seems most fully and brilliantly himself . . . Unimprovable masterpieces . . . So rich and so flawlessly crafted - its best stories feel instantly canonical, as if we've already been reading them for years . . . The opening story is letter-perfect from its first line . . . Funny, moving, built with superior economy, this is the real thing . . . Barry remains the great romantic of contemporary Irish fiction. Like all of the most interesting artists, he gets better with every risk he takes. The courage may be his. But the rewards are all ours -- Kevin Power * * Irish Independent * * Full of the damaged characters, menacing rural scenery and darkly comic, slantwise prose that have become his trademark . . . At each turn, Barry makes his fiction a matter of life and death * * New Statesman * * Optimism and sorrow anchor the stories in this collection, where relationships take unexpected turns and characters befuddle one another and themselves. Barry's writing sparkles, as ever, moving speedily between pathos and humour to great effect * * New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice * * Barry is wickedly funny, slyly transgressive and consistently brilliant. He is constantly turning tricks with language before upending us on the thwarted desires of his characters and the dark energy of his landscapes. And underpinning it all, the melancholy of men that is Barry's hallmark -- MARY COSTELLO