Walk the Blue FieldsWalk the Blue Fields

In stories brimming with Gothic shadows and ancient hurts, Claire Keegan tells of "a rural world of silent men and wild women who, for the most part, make had marriages, and vivid, uncomprehending children" (Anne Enright, The Guardian). In the "The Long and Painful Death," a writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Boll's old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder, whose ulterior motives only emerge as the night progresses. And in the title story, a priest waiting to perform a marriage battles against his memories of a lost love, an affair that made him question all to which he has dedicated his life-before finding what might be an answer in the most unlikely corner of town.