Review of Walk the Blue Fields: Stories (Paperback)

I suppose the first thing that comes to mind when I think of these short stories is that they have a strange relevance to today's uncertain world where the personal quests for economic, romantic and psychological security are ultimately doomed to failure.

The consistent theme weaving through these stories is that of a past that haunts the characters and is their ball and chain into the present and future.The stories revolve around familiar Irish subjects: shamed priests, writers, quirky women condemned as whores, and bored and destitute farmers.

The "Night of the Quicken Trees" combines most of these subjects and is the most compelling story in the book.It takes place on a wind swept plot of land overlooking the Cliffs of Moher, the last bit of Ireland until the Arran Islands.Steeped in mysticism, this tale involves Margaret's humorous and semi-tragic race against time to have a child to replace the baby she lost from crib death.Her decision to leave her home with her child and seek a safe haven from life's threats in the Arran Islands is the most spiritual and redemptive moment in the collection of stories.

"Irish Gothic" is how I would best describe the short stories.If Flannery O'Connor were still alive and visited modern Ireland, I think her reflections would be similar.

Product Description
Claire Keegan's brilliant debut collection, Antarctica, was a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year, and earned her resounding accolades on both sides of the Atlantic. Now she has delivered her next, much-anticipated book, Walk the Blue Fields, an unforgettable array of quietly wrenching stories about despair and desire in the timeless world of modern-day Ireland. In the never-before-published story "The Long and Painful Death," a writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll's old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder, whose ulterior motives only emerge as the night progresses. In the title story, a priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage and, during the ceremony and the festivities that follow, battles his memories of a love affair with the bride that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life; later that night, he finds an unlikely answer in the magical healing powers of a seer.
A masterful portrait of a country wrestling with its past and of individuals eking out their futures, Walk the Blue Fields is a breathtaking collection from one of Ireland's greatest talents, and a resounding articulation of all the yearnings of the human heart.

About the Author
Claire Keegan grew up in Wexford. Her debut collection, Antarctica, was a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year and won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Walk the Blue Fields: Stories (Paperback)

Review of The Likeness: A Novel (Hardcover)

There will be no spoilers in this review.

As in her first novel, In the Woods, Tana French has created another sensuous, lyrical, haunting, suspenseful story.Although it is considered a mystery, it is much much more than that.It is a story of identity in all its literal and metaphorical forms.It is a social commentary (but never sententious) and it is also about fear and flight and love.

Casie Maddox and Sam O'Neill are detectives from In the Woods.Although Operation Vestal (from In the Woods) is mentioned several times, these books can be read in any sequence without ruining it for the reader.The setting is again Dublin, Ireland.

Cassie is the star attraction of this story as she goes undercover to live with four liberal arts doctoral candidates whose housemate, Lexie Maddox, is found dead from a stabbingin an abandoned cottage.Lexie Maddox looks exactly like Cassie, and the name is her last undercover alias, which adds to the mystery.The housemates will be told that she survived the stabbing.

It isn't necessary to give too many plot details. What is more important is the response from reading.This is a generous, gorgeous, thoughtful, poetic story.The tone is almost elegiac at times, especially during her descriptive paragraphs, and the author's use of the extended metaphor is prolific and often profound.At the end of the novel, I looked up hawthorn (the tree, flower, bush) on Wikipedia and had a chill run up and down my spine.Her descriptions, turns of phrase, elegant passages and graceful unfolding keep me fastened and fascinated.What I love about Tana French is that her novels are both character-driven AND plot-driven.She does not sacrifice one for the other.With most mysteries, I only read them once.But The Likeness can be read again just for the aesthetics. Also, there is no deus ex machina here.The story is excellently paced with a well-timed delivery of its climax.

Tana French is no lightweight, but she makes the story accessible to anyone who enjoys reading.She has that gift to appeal to a variety of readers-- even readers who look for largely escape mysteries.But this is not escape reading; it is the kind of reading that makes you ponder.It is philosophical and it echoes.It has shadows, swirls, hollows, heart,humanity,tension, suspense, whispers, hawthorn, hawthorn, hawthorn...

I look forward to the third book that Tana French is working on, with Frank Mackey (from The Likeness) as the main protagonist.



Click Here to see more reviews about: The Likeness: A Novel (Hardcover)