That Old Country Music

Description

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY LIBRARY JOURNAL
From the author of the wildly acclaimed Night Boat to Tangier, a New York Times “Top 10” book of 2019, here are stories of contemporary Ireland: full of love (and sex), melancholy and magic, bedecked in some of the most gorgeous prose being written today.Since his landmark debut collection There Are Little Kingdoms in 2007, and its award-winning sequel in 2012, Dark Lies the Island, Kevin Barry has been acclaimed as one of the world’s most accomplished and gifted short story writers.
 
Barry’s lyric intensity, the vitality of his comedy and the darkness of his vision recall the work of masters of the genre like Flannery O’Connor and William Trevor, but he has forged a style which is patently his own.
 
In this rapturous third collection, we encounter a ragbag of West of Ireland characters, many on the cusp between love and catastrophe, heartbreak and epiphany, resignation and hope. These stories show an Ireland in a condition of great flux but also as a place where older rhythms, and an older magic, somehow persist. “Barry has the right stuff for short stories. He brings characters to life quickly and then blesses them with his uncanny ear for dialogue and prose rhythms, his compassion and wry wit. . . . Exceptional writing and a thoroughly entertaining collection.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“The multi-award-winning Barry (Night Boat to Tangier) dazzles with his word wizardry and the effortless grace of his perfect sentences.” —Library Journal
“[Barry’s] recent collection of stories is beautiful, and filled with lines that made me shout with laughter.” —Tracey Thorn, The Guardian“The master short story teller turns messy emotions into riveting tales of wounded Irish folk . . . One of the best collections you’ll read this year.” ―Sunday Times“Wild, witty stories . . . The west of Ireland teems with canny characters and vivid language . . . Darkly glimmering . . . Their language is exhilarating, its verve evoking the very best of Barry’s compatriots while further carving out a territory that’s all his own.” ―Observer“Barry often writes with sonorous wisdom . . . but as readers of his grimly hilarious novels will know, his language is just as precise when it is in the service of comedy . . . Exhilaratingly funny and poignant fables.” ―Sunday Telegraph“These playful, serious and beautifully crafted stories allow Barry to experiment as we need great writers to do.” ―Irish Times“An extraordinary writer . . . In his short stories Barry seems most fully and brilliantly himself. . . . So rich and so flawlessly crafted―its best stories feel instantly canonical, as if we’ve already been reading them for years . . . The opening story is letter-perfect from its first line . . . Funny, moving, built with superior economy, this is the real thing . . . Barry remains the great romantic of contemporary Irish fiction. Like all of the most interesting artists, he gets better with every risk he takes. The courage may be his. But the rewards are all ours.” ―Irish Independent“Full of the damaged characters, menacing rural scenery and darkly comic, slantwise prose that have become his trademark . . . At each turn, Barry makes his fiction a matter of life and death.” ―New Statesman“There’s a fluent charm in Kevin Barry’s writing even when he’s dealing with subjects that are far from charming . . . Barry’s deceptively laid-back writing has an assured texture. He makes it look easy, but it is unmistakably deft.” ―Sunday Times KEVIN BARRY is the author of the novels Night Boat to Tangier, Beatlebone, and City of Bohane and the story collections Dark Lies the Island and There Are Little Kingdoms. His awards include the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize and the Lannan Foundation Literary Award. His most recent novel, Night Boat to Tangier, was nominated for the Booker Prize. His stories and essays appear in The New Yorker, Granta and elsewhere. He also works as a playwright and screenwriter, and he lives in County Sligo, Ireland. US