"Antarctica" by Claire Keegan (Faber, 1999)

Stories from Paris Review, etc.

• Antarctica - She's married with adolescent kids. She's always wondered what an affair would be like. With the rest of the family away she stays in a hotel and picks up a man who's caring. In his place she enjoys the sex - "Afterwards they smoked - she hadn't smoked in years, quit before the first baby." She sneaks off back to her hotel early the next morning. He finds her. He leads her rather forcefully into the woods. Then they return to his place. He's a good cook. Next morning she finds that she's handcuffed to the bed. He goes to work.
• Love in the tall grass - It's the last day of 1999 and Cordelia is nearly 40. The doctor (married with kids) used to visit her each Thursday about 10 years before, then his wife found out and he stopped, promising Cordelia that he'd leave his wife in 10 years. She became a recluse. Today she's going out to find him. His wife finds her first to say that the deal's off. The doctor arrives. The last sentence is "All three of them just sit there and wait: Cordelia, the doctor and his wife, all three mortals waiting, waiting for somebody to leave."
• Where the water's deepest - An au pair rows the boy out on the lake so he can fish. She has recurring dreams about failing to save his life. Alone in the evening, she fishes alone by a pier. He tries to surprise her from behind, then is suddenly scared of the deep, dark water behind her. She comforts him and carries him back to the house. [an analogy for a relationship? They fish in different ways]
• The Ginger Rogers Sermon - She's a 13 y.o. tomboy with a brother Eugene. She looks after a horse. Their parents like dancing, considering it important. Their father employs a big man they called "Slapper Jim" who can't dance well. He has a much smaller girlfriend. The main character goes to a dance, sees people snogging outside. When Jim has to stay in their house because of bad weather, she sneaks into his bed and tosses him off. Next day she find him hanging from a tree. The final 3 pages are about the wake. There's dancing, no hint of guilt. [my favourite so far]
• Storms - There's a chest in the old dairy that the young narrator, Ellen, looks through. Ellen's life changed when her mother dreamed of her mother's death. She died and Ellen's mother became strange. She was taken away in a van and Ellen visits weekly. [I don't get it]
• The singing cashier - The c.16 y.o. narrator who's given up school lives with her older sister Cora, who works at Tesco. Whenever the postman arrives, the narrator's send out on an errand so that Cora can have sex in exchange for fish. One day they discover that girls their age have been killed by a man their father knew. Cora stops inviting the postman in. [Slight. Only 7 pages]
• Burns - It begins with "They will try it out for summer. Together they will confront their past, the source of all their trouble, and stamp it out. That, at least, is the theory." He's moved to an old farmhouse with his 3 kids and new wife Robin. His first wife harmed the kids? While he's out, cockroaches invade the kitchen and the rest of the family jump onto the kitchen island. He returns and fights them off. [No]
• Quare name for a boy - She returns from England to Ireland - maybe for good this time. Last Xmas when she came back she had a 6 day affair. She's pregnant now. She goes to Dublin to see the father - "I want you to say you love me, even though I don't love you ... If I must carry the child, the least you can do is love me." They discuss names. She begins to think that she doesn't want to see him again. [No]
• Ride if you dare - USA. 2 PoVs - Roslin and a man she's made a date with. After 10 years of marriage she's realised she's bored and risks becoming a drunk. After a meal they go off in her truck. They see a funfair. He wants to stop. She's too scared to go on the Big Wheel. They try a long slide, strapped together. She nearly bottles out. "She looks down. It is even steeper than she imagined. When it happens, it happens fast." [No]
• Men and women - She works on the farm for her father while her brother Seamus studies for school. Her mother, like nearly all the women she knows, can't (or pretend they can't) drive. Her parents sleep in different rooms. She (her first-person PoV) still believes in father Christmas. They go to a New Year's Eve event. Her father dances with other women. Old men want to dance with her. On the drive home (her father drinking) her mother wins a psychological game of power about who should open the gate. He does, and she takes over the wheel [. I've read this before, in "The Granta book of the Irish short story". I like it]
• Sisters - The mother of Betty and younger, prettier sister Louisa died suddenly when the girls were little. Betty stayed in Ireland to help on their father's farm, then cared for him until his death a year ago. Betty's 50 now. Louisa went to England and married. Now, at the start of the summer holidays, she's come to visit with children Ruth (9) and older Edward. Louisa says her husband will arrive soon. During the holiday they don't help or pay for anything. Betty says to Louisa that she thinks she doesn't actually have a dishwasher, and that Louisa's left her husband. She then starts cutting Louisa's hair short. Next day Louisa leaves with her children.
• A scent of winter - Hanson, a lawyer with a pregnant wife, drives with his 2 kids plus their nanny to visit Greer. They all fish in a lake. Then Hanson and Greer talk over a few drinks. A negro raped Greer's wife months before. She's refusing to eat. Greer locked the man up. As Hanson and his family leave, they see the negro escape over the fields. The nanny scream 'I quit! I quit! You goddam sons-a-barbarian-bitches!' and joined the negro. [I don't get this. So Greer didn't report it because of the shame? Is the nanny black?]
• You can't be too careful - J.E., born 1943, is called by Butch at 3am because Butch wants to go fishing with J.E. in his boat. While they're in the Mississippi Delta Butch drinks and says he killed his adulterous wife. J.E. fears he'll be killed. After many hours, Butch takes J.E.'s truck keys, exchanges his bloodstained shirt for J.E.'s and abandons J.E. on an island. It's J.E.'s 1st-person PoV - in the form of a statement trying to defend his actions, letting Butch escape [I like the details]
• The burning palms - A boy was with his mother at his gran's house when a lorry hit the house killing his mother. After, the boy helps his gran put up wallpaper with a palm tree design. Gran sets the house alight. He rushes in to save her pension book and photos then from a safe distance the 2 of them watch the house burn.
• Passport soup - Frank and Elsie's daughter has gone missing - she disappeared while he was responsible for her. Elsie serves him soup with 9 passport-sized photos of their daughter in it. Then she attacks him, which he prefers to her ignoring him.

Mothers die. Women are missing something in their lives. Hopes/promises are broken. Couples bore each other or are unfaithful. At the end of stories I often felt disappointed, liking the set-up and details but feeling I've missed a layer or two.

Other reviews

• jacquiwine (alongside stories of dysfunctional families and blighted lives, there are instances of women breaking away from the constraints that bind them, stories of burgeoning sexuality, experimentation and revenge. There’s also a sense of Keegan trying out different styles and techniques in this collection, perhaps to see which approaches would suit her best. ... For me, the standout story in this collection is Sisters)
• Philip McCann (the stories explore mostly rural family life, whether in Ireland, the US or Britain. In several, an irrepressible, imaginative girl looks with curiosity on the range of human nature and the quirks of fate. There are a few too many Virgin Marys, Sister Emmanuels and 'Glory Be's for my taste ... there is no modernist alienation, no women's stance. Post-feminist women spontaneously play traditional roles one moment, dominate the next and the femininity is as fresh, unselfconscious and natural as the voice is original.)
• booksaremyfavouriteandbest (There were some stories that fell short for me – they either ended in a way that didn’t feel satisfying (and you’re aware of this because Keegan does leave you wondering in some stories but in a welcome way) or were told from a perspective that wasn’t fully convincing (incidentally, these were the stories focused on male characters in America).)
• whisperinggums (It is this sense – this idea of telling stories about humans without judgement – that underpins Keegan’s writing for me. ... It’s hard to pick favourites, but of course I do have some. “Antarctica”, “Love in the tall grass”, “Men and women” and “Sisters”)