Walk the Blue Fields: Stories
Claire KeeganNow she has delivered her next, much-anticipated book, Walk the Blue Fields, an unforgettable array of quietly wrenching stories about despair & desire in the timeless world of modern-day Ireland. In the never-before-published story “The Long & 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 & of individuals eking out their futures, Walk the Blue Fields is a breathtaking collection from one of Ireland’s greatest talents, & a resounding articulation of all the yearnings of the human heart.
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Claire Keegan is a novelist & short story writer, whose work has won numerous awards & been translated into more than 20 languages. Keegan was brought up on a farm in Ireland. At the age of 17, she travelled to New Orleans, where she studied English & Political Science at Loyola University. She returned to Ireland in 1992, & her highly acclaimed 1st volume of short stories - Antarctica - was published in 1999. A second successful collection of stories - Walk the Blue Fields (2007) - was followed by her 1st novel, Foster, which won the 2009 Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award. Foster was named by the Times as 1 of the top 50 novels to be published in the 21st Century. Keegan is the current holder of the Briena Staunton Visiting Writer Fellowship at P