So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men
by Claire Keegan
I recently heard that while novels are a sort of extended-release drug, short stories are fast-acting. Because of this speed, it’s hard to talk about a short story without giving its plot away or analyzing every sentence. I’ve done my best.
Claire Keegan is a master of the short story, with each one painting a rich portrait of a character and a setting, both of which leap off the page. It is a true achievement that both women and men in So Late in the Day come across as real people with depth and color, because all three stories describe how a man’s misogyny disrupts the life of a woman. For example, one man seems to exist solely to antagonize a protagonist, but even in the short space allotted to him, his backstory brings him to life. He is a type, but he also has a specific tragedy in his past. It’s much easier for the women of these tales to come to life, as we sympathize with them. We even sympathize with one woman who never appears; it is her absence that gives her shape.
In each story, we see characters travel and we see them occupy a home of some kind. These settings use that “fast-acting drug” to tell us exactly what’s happening beyond the events on the page. In “So Late in the Day,” we meet Cathal in the office, where he contrasts his weary trip down the stairs leaving work with the way he once bounded down them in joy and anticipation. His bus ride home has an air of melancholy to it, but a true sense of permanent loneliness sinks in when he finally arrives.
By contrast, the house in “The Long and Painful Death” has a sense of everything being borrowed, as it’s occupied by different writers for extended residencies. Even with this borrowing, its contrast with the vibrant outdoors lends it a sense of stillness. The main character knows that she is not the first to take the bike down to lay naked in the sun, but she feels as though she is the only person to have occupied that space.
“Antarctica” uses travel to convey a sense of excitement and expectation—the story cannot happen without its main character traveling far from home. The place she visits lures her in as it seems to be an extension of that feeling and then traps her in a stillness as bleak as the landscape of Antarctica.
Keegan’s sentences are often indescribably beautiful, and she has a knack for capturing everyday occurrences and objects. A man sits at his desk in an office: “When a shadow crossed, he looked out; a gulp of swallows skirmishing, high up, in camaraderie.” Read So Late in the Day for its perfect little moments.