First published 2016
A woman confronts the gap between desire and reality. A family grapples with the Church's failures. Characters navigate the quiet cruelties that patriarchal traditions impose on daily life. Julia O'Faolain draws her protagonists from Ireland to Italy, from France to America, placing them at moments where relationships fracture and reform. Her characters face mortality, witness new life, and wrestle with religious and political forces that shape their choices. O'Faolain strips away the illusions that surround sexual longing and exposes how institutional power operates in intimate spaces. The collection includes an afterword where O'Faolain reflects on the short story form and the writers who influenced her craft. These stories examine the spaces between what people believe about themselves and what their actions reveal.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-driven, quiet-cruelties
Setting: America, France, Ireland, Italy
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
208 pages · Kindle Edition · Faber and Faber Ltd