Thursday, November 16, 2023

Claire Keegan, So Late in the Day


- Another beautiful little book from the marvellous Irish author Claire Keegan. I so loved Foster and Small Things Like These. This one is smaller, at only 47 pages, yet it too packs a powerful punch.

- Cathal is a young office bound man in a boring admin job. He meets Sabine, a young attractive woman working in an art gallery. After a while he proposes, she accepts, and brings her clothes and furniture to his house.

- But he senses she's an intrusion on his daily routines. He’s upset. ‘Maybe it’s just too much reality’. And as for that engagement ring that cost him 128 euros plus VAT to get it resized for her finger! 'Do you think I'm made of money?' he'd said - and immediately felt the long shadow of his father's language crossing over his life...

- One night she talks to him about misogyny: ‘It’s simply about not giving...to some of you we are just cunts'. She will not tolerate being treated as subservient. She walks, prior to the wedding day.

- It's a simple story. He’s a pathetic inadequate. A little boy who, like his father and brother, calls women ‘cunts’. Once again he just sits in his arm chair, staring at the TV, and that's his life. 

- The End. 


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