Лучшие книги Клэр Киган

Wer etwas auf sich hält in New Ross, County Wicklow, und es sich leisten kann, lässt seine Wäsche im Kloster waschen. Doch was sich dort hinter den glänzenden Fenstern und dicken Mauern ereignet, will in der Kleinstadt niemand so genau wissen. Denn es gibt Gerüchte. Dass es moralisch fragwürdige Mädchen sind, die zur Buße Schmutzflecken aus den Laken waschen. Dass sie von früh bis spät arbeiten müssen und daran zugrunde gehen. Dass ihre neugeborenen Babys ins Ausland verkauft werden. Der Kohlenhändler Billy Furlong hat kein Interesse an Klatsch und Tratsch. Es sind harte Zeiten in Irland 1985, er hat Frau und fünf Töchter zu versorgen, und die Nonnen zahlen pünktlich. Eines Morgens ist Billy zu früh dran mit seiner Auslieferung. Und macht im Kohlenschuppen des Klosters eine Entdeckung, die ihn zutiefst verstört. Er muss eine Entscheidung treffen: als Familienvater, als Christ, als Mensch. Mit wenigen Worten erschafft Claire Keegan eine ganze Welt. Auf unnachahmliche Weise erzählt Kleine Dinge wie diese von Komplizenschaft und Mitschuld, davon, wie Menschen das Grauen in ihrer Mitte ignorieren, um in ihrem Alltag fortfahren zu können – davon, dass es möglich ist, das Richtige zu tun.

It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas' house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom. But there is something unspoken in this new household--where everything is so well tended to--and this summer must soon come to an end.

A triptych of stories about love, lust, betrayal, misogyny, and the ever-intriguing interchanges between women and men. Celebrated for her powerful short fiction, Claire Keegan now gifts us three exquisite stories, newly revised and expanded, together forming a brilliant examination of gender dynamics and an arc from Keegan’s earliest to her most recent work.

Presented here is a debut collection of short stories set in Ireland and the Deep South of America. They reveal lives where dreams, memory and chance can lead to horrifying consequences; worlds where obsession and dark tensions seethe just beneath the surface.

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles.
The evening is fine. In the sky a few early stars are shining of their own accord. She watches the dog licking the bowl clean. This dog will break her daughter’s heart, she’s sure of it.
Claire Keegan’s mesmeric story takes us into the heart of the Wicklow countryside, and of the farming family of Victor Deegan, with his ‘three teenagers, the milking and the mortgage’.
When Deegan finds a gun dog and gives it as a present to his only daughter, his wife is filled with foreboding at this seeming act of kindness. As the seasons pass, long-buried family secrets threaten to emerge.
Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

Опубликовано в журнале Иностранная литература
№6 2007 года

A long-haired woman moves into the priest's house and sets fire to his furniture. That Christmas, the electricity goes out. A forester mortgages his land and goes off to a seaside town looking for a wife. He finds a woman eating alone in the hotel. A farmer wakes half-naked and realises the money is almost gone. And in the title story, a priest waits on the altar for a bride and battles, all that wedding day, with his memories of a love affair. In her long-awaited second collection, Claire Keegan observes an Ireland wrestling with its past.