Call me Myself - Claire Keegan, Pat McCabe and some rambling shite

Original Post - Thursday, August 26, 2010

I recently read Clare Keegan’s collection of short stories Walk the Blue Fields and was impressed by the clarity and stylistic mastery displayed within. It is a mastery within the tradition of the short story writers and I had thought McGahern a number of times before arriving at Surrender (after McGahern) based upon his memoirs.

The books cover is replete with the acclaim of critics and her peers. “Already touched by greatness” “exceptional” “genius” Raymond Carver”  etc. It started me thinking about the things that make a writer “great”. One thing felt wrong for me – I wasn’t sure that the writer was really consumed by the voices within the stories (and I wasn’t wholly consumed myself). They felt self-consciously like ‘great short stories’.