After having a great discussion during a group read, as I did with this book, I rarely feel like writing a review. So just know that this is a must-read for short-story lovers and if you're interested in rural Ireland, that's a bonus. The writing is elegant, well-crafted, subtle yet expansive. There is so much to these stories that while they can be enjoyed once in satisfaction, they need to be reread to be savored.

( 4.5 )It was not too long ago I proclaimed that I did not like short stories. That began to change when I became involved with a stimulating group during our isolation with Covid. We have read a new story each week for now almost two years and are continuing. I have become a convert!This was my first introduction to Claire Keegan and I have become completely enchanted by her insightful, graceful writing. I have never been to Ireland, but I have often been attracted to the wit and charm of the

pretty damn good. In the tradition of Irish short story telling, eg John McGahern (in fact one of the stories is 'after' him). So if that's your bag you will love this. I thought there were three or four great stories in it and one or two not so..

This paperback from 2007 is dynamite. All seven of the short stories are simply wonderful, some moving the heart and some providing heartwarming chuckles. Irish fiction at its best.

This is an quintessentially Irish book, peopled with women (young and old) who are angry with the men who are in --or not in -- their lives; sullen men who don't know what has happened to what they were hoping for; and children who see all that is happening in their homes and escape however they can. The settings are rural, the tales are somewhat contemporary but also occasionally almost folk tale in style.Keegan has been compared to Trevor and Chekhov in her skills and style. I'm not expert eno...

Claire Keegan was a new author for me this year. I’ve now read Foster, Small Things Like These and this collection of short stories published in 2007, Walk The Blue Fields. Keegan’s stories are never light, there’s a sombre tone to most of them, but her ability to convey a world of emotion while leaving so much unsaid is remarkable. Her stories tend to be highly charged, emotionally fraught and not always neatly resolved.I had some favourites in this collection - The Parting Gift, Walk the Blue

On the edge of the road, a small, plump hen walked purposefully along, her head extended and her feet clambering over the stones. She was such a pretty hen, her plumage edged in white, as though she’d powdered herself before she’d stepped out of the house. She hopped down onto the grassy verge and, without looking left or right, raced across the road, then stopped, re-adjusted her wings, and made a clear line for the cliff. The woman watched how the hen kept her head down when she reached the ed...

This was a book I picked up on a whim (and a vague memory of having heard good things) at my local independent Five Leaves. I am very glad I did, as this is an impressive collection of stories in the rich Irish tradition of the likes of William Trevor and John McGahern.The settings are often mundane and rural but the stories generally transcend them and surprise the reader.

Intriguing short stories very well told. Some of the main characters are very recognizable.

The land and the past assume different shapes and dimensions to become the uniting themes of the eight tales that compose this slim yet gripping collection. Claire Keegan writes with stark prose drenched with Irish mysticism and presents a wide array of rural characters who bloom with earthiness and who, at the same time, wither with thick longing for some essential need they find lacking in their lives. Haunted by the past, they are shackled to an inescapable present that won’t allow them the p...

A woman would be a terrible disadvantage: she'd make him match his clothes and take baths.Ah, now there's the flinty truth, that irritant sharp stone in the shoe, one that turns out to be a tiny diamond of truth that holds a world of light and refracts it in all the colours of the spectrum. Keegan's prism highlights some of those unfortunates who do not understand the value of sharing your life with another person. Oh, there are couplings, yes, for man must take a mate, but strangely, the men in...

A collection of seven stories exploring themes of families, emotions, secrets, memories - not all of them welcome ones, and love that is taboo, morally, religiously as well as legally. ’Now you stand on the landing trying to remember happiness, a good day, an evening, a kind word.’ - from ’The Parting Gift’’There’s pleasure to be had in history. What’s recent is another matter and painful to recall.’ - from ’Walk the Blue Fields’Fragments of his time…cross his mind. How lovely it was to know her...

One of the best new writers to come along in decades is the Irish writer, Claire Keegan, who hails from County Wicklow. Although Keegan, herself cites the American writer, Flannery O’Conner as one of her personal favorites and one of her influences, Keegan’s work bears more resemblance to Chekhov, and to her fellow Irishmen, John McGahern and William Trevor. Dedicated to the short story form, Keegan’s story, “Foster” was chosen the “Best of the Year” by the “New Yorker” and is now available from...

Walk the Blue Fields struck me as lovely title for a book. It is a collection of seven well-crafted short stories by a young, award-winning Irish writer, Claire Keegan. The setting of (almost all) the stories is rural Ireland and most of them hark back to a more conservative era. The issues confronting the protagonists are, however, timeless matters of the heart. Keenly observed and surfaced are the depths of yearning known to everyone who cherishes hope for the future and the insidious grip the...

Please consider this gorgeous book about Ireland today if you're looking for a non gross and stereotyping way to celebrate the day!This one’s been lurking on my virtual to-read since not long after it came out and a few glowing reviews made the rounds of my particular little literary-fiction loving circle of bookfriends. But this was another one that wasn’t quite flash enough to make it to the top of the pile- until someone actually scoured my to-read list, of hundreds of books, and picked this

This is a collection of short stories, all taking place in rural Ireland. We’ve got all that you might expect: alcoholism, sexual abuse of minors, priest choosing church over the living breathing woman he professed his love for. No happy people dwell on these pages. Skilfully written but ultimately forgettable, maybe except for the last story, the fairy tale called Night of the Quicken Trees, but time will tell. Drenched in desperation, disappointments, regrets, it is definitely a mood piece. Un...

The collection contains a few beautiful stories in which the author manages to create the right atmosphere in a marvelous way although at some points she borders on sentimentality. The Forester's Daughter is magnificent in the way the story develops very naturally. Introducing the simpleton brother and describing the point of view of the dog: very original and effevtive.

Finally, the third book that traveled with me to Ireland for school earlier this month. I brought it because Keegan was a guest speaker during the residency and I wanted to get her to sign the book which I picked up for half-off at the campus bookstore which is one of the best things ever.I had never read Keegan, and I am sorry to say I didn't finish reading it before meeting Keegan, but I did finish it soon after returning home. In some ways, I think it was good to read a couple of stories in t...

Somewhere between a 3.5 and a 4 I think? Keegan's writing is very beautiful, very lyrical, and very evocative, but her stories are also very bleak and full of unhappy people. (Very Irish? Idk. Probably.) (Ignore the fact that this collection has taken me four weeks to finish; sometimes I just need to take breaks with books in order to better appreciate them. Nothing worse than forcing yourself to finish a book when you're not in the mood.)

While reading Claire Keegan’s Walk the Blue Fields, I couldn’t help but think that this is a book about loneliness. Correction: about being alone. Not all of the characters in it are actually lonely. Some have just found solace in their solitude. In “A Long and Painful Death” the desired peace and quiet of a writer lodging in a house on an island is disturbed by an angry German, who breaks her writer’s block. “The Parting Gift” tells the story of a young woman who looks forward to disconnecting