CHARLOTTE’S PICK

2 truths and a lie, Keegans taut 3 story cycle examines the very human desire for companionship by breaking apart our own forged perceptions, refitting the pieces, and thrusting them into the fire for a final and brutal tempering. For lovers of early Atwood and Oates. -CC

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 forms 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 Keegans 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 writers arrival at the seaside home of Heinrich Bll 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 its 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.

Hardcover | 128 pages | 5.00″ x 7.25″