Product Description

Presented here is a debut collection of short stories set in Ireland and the Deep South of America. They reveal lives where dreams, memory and chance can lead to horrifying consequences; worlds where obsession and dark tensions seethe just beneath the surface.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #78914 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 215 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Claire Keegan's debut collection of short stories, Antartica is a varied, often challenging, series of reflections on the drama, and violence, of everyday lives: the love affairs which tempt women, and men, to leave their marriages, the cruel rivalry between sisters, the common misery between men and women, the uncanny effects of requited love. Like her narrative voices, Keegan's themes are diverse, distinctive. "Every time the happily married woman went away," she writes, at the beginning of the eponymous "Antartica", "she wondered how it would feel to sleep with another man." Taking her chance between danger and eroticism, she finds out. Does the au pair want to kill the baby? Is the question which drives "Where the Water's Deepest", while "Men and Women" gives voice to the desperation of being the "useful" child to a father-tyrant: men "do nothing" in a world in which mother and daughter do nothing but work. One of the most disturbing stories in the collection is "A Scent of Winter", a tale of "rape" and revenge, of keeping a white wife silent and waiting for a black man to "heal". That (grotesque) hint is typical of how these stories work, and of the strange, sometimes ruthless, world onto which they open.--Vicky Lebeau

Customer Reviews

stunning book of stories. subtle yet menacing, literary
i read this book after reading a favourable review in the times literary supplement and was not disappointed. claire keegan's stories are set in ireland, america, and britain. the title story is about a married woman who, after always doing the right thing, goes away with the intention of sleeping with another man. there is a sense of impending doom in these stories which quickens the circulation. her prose is reminiscent of carver and has the chilling feel of william trevor. a newcomer to watch out for. this should become a classic.

compelling read
I read this book of stories after reading the review in the TLS and was not disapppointed.The stories are haunting, each with its own particular setting and style. Puts one in mind of Ian McEwan or Daphne du Maurier. Stunning work throughout.

compelling read
Keegan's stories creep up on you. They are haunting tales, each with its own particular setting and style. Puts one in mind of Ian McEwan's stories or Daphne du Maurier at her very best.