So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men
4/5
()
About this ebook
From Booker Prize Finalist and bestselling author of “pitch perfect” (Boston Globe) Small Things Like These, comes a triptych of stories about love, lust, betrayal, and the ever-intriguing interchanges between women and men.
Celebrated for her powerful short fiction, considered “among the form’s most masterful practitioners” (New York Times), 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.
In So Late in the Day, Cathal faces a long weekend as his mind agitates over a woman with whom he could have spent his life, had he behaved differently; in The Long and Painful Death, a writer’s arrival at the seaside home of Heinrich Böll for a residency is disrupted by an academic who imposes his presence and opinions; and in Antarctica, a married woman travels out of town to see what it’s like to sleep with another man and ends up in the grip of a possessive stranger.
Each story probes the dynamics that corrupt what could be between women and men: a lack of generosity, the weight of expectation, the looming threat of violence. Potent, charged, and breathtakingly insightful, these three essential tales will linger with readers long after the book is closed.
Editor's Note
Speaks volumes through brevity…
Keegan (“Small Things Like These”) is unrivaled in her ability to speak volumes through brevity. In this collection, a jilted man unpacks his own misogyny; an opinionated scholar sours a writer’s retreat; an extramarital fling takes a terrifying turn. Through each story, Keegan dissects the many ways and reasons things go wrong between men and women, and how the latter are heavily burdened by the consequences.
Read more from Claire Keegan
Small Things Like These Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Antarctica Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Walk the Blue Fields: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to So Late in the Day
Related ebooks
Prophet Song: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Build a Boat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Cheerfully Refuse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enter Ghost Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Orbital Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Cross-Stitch Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Trondheim Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bournville Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Small Worlds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5City of Laughter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Guest Lecture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hot Springs Drive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hero of This Book: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anniversary Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Road to Dalton Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invisible Hour: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mythmakers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End We Start From Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Temple Folk Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Old Flame Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Owner of a Lonely Heart: A Memoir of Motherhood and Absence Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5And Then He Sang a Lullaby Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Journals of Sacajewea: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Euphoria Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bridge of San Luis Rey: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We All Want Impossible Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Big Swiss: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Burning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Short Stories For You
Sex and Erotic: Hard, hot and sexy Short-Stories for Adults Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warrior of the Light: A Manual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Explicit Content: Red Hot Stories of Hardcore Erotica Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hills Like White Elephants Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Before You Sleep: Three Horrors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Short Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Four Past Midnight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Years of the Best American Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lovecraft Country: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don Quixote Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The ABC Murders: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: A Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Tuesdays in Winter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ficciones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Scorched Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sour Candy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for So Late in the Day
22 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5very interesting stories where there's a reason to say don't assume things what it really spells is ass out of u and me. I really enjoyed this book. had twists I didn't see. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A very beautiful touching story im hungry for more too
Book preview
So Late in the Day - Claire Keegan
Also by Claire Keegan
ANTARCTICA
WALK THE BLUE FIELDS
SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE
FOSTER
SO LATE
IN THE DAY
stories of women and men
CLAIRE KEEGAN
Grove Press
New York
Copyright © 2023 by Claire Keegan
Jacket artwork (linocut) © Paula Pohli
So Late in the Day
first published in the New Yorker (2022); The Long and Painful Death
first published in Walk The Blue Fields (Black Cat, 2007); Antarctica
first published in Antarctica (Grove Press, 1999)
The Long and Painful Death
reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd, London, on behalf of Claire Keegan. Copyright 2007 © Claire Keegan
Antarctica
reproduced with permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. and Curtis Brown Ltd, London, on behalf of Claire Keegan. Copyright 1999 © Claire Keegan
Excerpt from Aubade
from The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin by Philip Larkin, edited by Archie Burnett. Copyright © 2012 by The Estate of Philip Larkin. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Faber and Faber Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or permissions@groveatlantic.com.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: November 2023
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.
ISBN 978-0-8021-6085-0
eISBN 978-0-8021-6087-4
Grove Press
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
groveatlantic.com
Contents
So Late in the Day
The Long and Painful Death
Antarctica
Acknowledgements
For Loretta Kinsella
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Aubade
by Philip Larkin.
So Late in the Day
1
On Friday, July 29th, Dublin got the weather that was forecast. All morning, a brazen sun shone across Merrion Square, reaching onto Cathal’s desk where he was stationed by the open window. A taste of cut grass blew in and every now and then a close breeze stirred the ivy, on the ledge. When a shadow crossed, he looked out; a gulp of swallows skirmishing, high up, in camaraderie. Down on the lawns, some people were out sunbathing and there were children, and beds plump with flowers; so much of life carrying smoothly on, despite the tangle of human upsets and the knowledge of how everything must end.
Already, the day felt long. When he looked again, at the top of the screen again, it read 14:27. He wished, now, that he had gone out at lunchtime and walked as far as the canal. He could have sat on one of the benches there for a while and watched the mute swans and cygnets gobbling up the crusts and other scraps people threw down there, on the water. Without meaning to, he closed the budget distribution file he’d been working on before saving it. A flash of something not unlike contempt charged through him then, and he got up and walked down the corridor, as far as the men’s room, where there was no one, and pushed into a stall. For a while he sat on the lid, looking at the back of the door, on which nothing was written or scrawled, until he felt a bit steadier. Then he went to the basin and splashed water on his face, and slowly dried his face and hands on the paper towel which fed, automatically, from the dispenser.
On the way back to his desk, he stopped for a coffee, pressed the Americano option on the machine, and waited for it to spill down, into the cup.
It was almost ready when Cynthia, the brightly dressed woman from accounts, came in, laughing on her mobile. She paused when she saw him, and soon hung up.
‘All right there, Cathal?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Grand. You?’
‘Grand.’ She smiled. ‘Thanks for asking.’
He took up the coffee, leaving before he’d sugared it, before she could say anything more.
When he got back to his desk and looked at the top of the screen, it was 14:54. He was just reopening the file and reading over what was there and was about to compose some of the changes he would again have to make, when the boss stopped by.
The boss was a Northern man, a good ten years younger than himself, who wore designer suits and played squash at the weekends.
‘Well, Cathal. How are things?’
‘Good,’ Cathal said. ‘Thanks.’