Antarctica

by Claire Keegan

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802139019
• ISBN13: 9780802139016
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

fantastic short stories

Claire Keegan is a new find for me and I love her work. I had to put down the book for a couple of days after reading the opening and title story, "Antarctica." I was simply stunned by the way it wrapped up, though I started getting a sense about where it could be going, but it went way further than I anticipated. Keegan seems to be a writer somewhat in the O. Henry style who can wrap up with a perfectly plausible, though wholly unexpected resolution. Emily Dickinson described poetry as something that should blow your head off, and these short stories will did just that to me.

Distinguished Company

To begin with, Keegan's title story is a killer, a dark classic. She's great, like the Irish all-stars (Roddy Doyle, Colm Toibin), but also some of our Americans, particularly contemporary masters like Edward P. Jones and Mary Hood, with whom she shares that that deep, rueful knowledge of place and people, and habit of telling stories that are rich as novels. Anyone who loves good short stories and/or Irish writers will appreciate Claire Keegan's Anarctica.

Deserving of recognition

This collection of stories stumbled into my notice completely by accident. I am so glad that it did. If you are a fan of the short story, pick up Keegan's book! This is writing at its very best, in my opinion, and I anxiously await her next publication.

Talented New Writer

Some very well known writers endorse the sixteen short stories that form the debut of Ms. Claire Keegan entitled, "Antarctica". There are times these enthusiastic comments are a poor indicator of what the reader will find inside. This is not the case with Ms. Keegan's work. Not every story is memorable, however most of them are, and that is enough reason to look forward to what this writer may present readers in the future.The collection's range is as diverse as the locales they unfold in. Ms. Keegan's talent is not limited to the land of her birth. She writes beautifully of Ireland, however she also writes as competently of Mississippi. Like all good writers she not only has an eye for detail and the ability to put what she sees on a page, she also has an ear for dialects that she can reproduce with equal skill.Her stories range from the terribly sad when an event has unbalanced a person, to one who has been second all her life until she takes primacy with a set of scissors, and does so without harm. There are stories of misplaced guilt, respect for the past and those that remain as representatives of it. Her stories are not sentimental; they are uncluttered, and at times uncomfortably direct.I doubt this is the last work we will see from this lady, and I look forward to reading her work again.