Book: Claire Keegan: Antarctica (Faber and Faber, 1999)
This is a collection of Irish short stories. The title story uses Antarctica as a metaphor, and that’s where the collection’s connection to the continent begins and ends. The title story is intereresting, and a couple of the others are good as well, but in general the writing is too abstract for my taste. There’s no sense of place, character, or anything, and many of the stories are mood pieces where very little happens. The subjects range from infidelity and dating to rural life.