A day in the life of Cathal, a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Until it is too late. An examination of misogyny, narrow-minded meanness in the context of one man's relationship with the woman he believed he loved. No spoilers here. The whole thing takes under half an hour to read. Read it. ( )

Barely even long enough to be called a novella, but there's a lot packed in here, leaving me with lots to think about. ( )

Looking Back at an Ending
Review of the Faber & Faber hardcover edition (August 31, 2023) of the short story/novella as it first appeared in The New Yorker (Online February 21, 2022)

Then a line from something he’d read somewhere came to him, to do with endings: about how, if things have not ended badly, they have not ended.

A man named Cathal seems to be going about a very ordinary day. He returns home from work while reminiscing about a relationship with a woman named Sabine. Very gradually we learn how they met, how events proceeded and how it all ended. Things turned quite bitter by the end and we finally understand the meaning behind what the day was supposed to have been.

See photograph at https://media.newyorker.com/photos/620e8f3cf99f2e995b6cb758/3:4/pass/220228_r399...
Story themed photograph by Edna Bowe for The New Yorker. Image sourced from The New Yorker, Online February 21, 2022. (Note: The link takes you to the story itself. If you have exhausted your free reads, you should still be able to access Claire Keegan's own reading of the book.)

Claire Keegan has produced yet another of her engrossing stories where the secrets behind the surface are only gradually revealed. This may not have quite the impact of her now classic Small Things Like These (2021), but is just as devastating in its own way.

Trivia and Link
Author Claire Keegan is interviewed about the background to her writing of So Late in the Day which you can read at Claire Keegan on Drama versus Tension by Deborah Treisman, Online February 21, 2022. ( )

I had intended to buy this collection of three short stories, when I came across one of the three in The New Yorker, February, and realized that I had in fact read the other two in the collection in Antarctica and Walk the Blue Fields.

The short story whose name in the title of the book, can be listened to online in New Yorker, February 2022.

So Late in the Day is a near-perfectly written story about a few hours in the life on a man whose misogyny and lack of empathy is slowly revealed as he goes about his life on the day his marriage didn’t happen. Every feeling, thought and action is exquisitely drawn; the pace is almost unbearably slow, as the full extent of the man’s poverty of personality is revealed.

A Long and Painful Death is published in Walk the Blue Fields. A female writer has a residency in the seaside home of Heinrich Böll. Her peace is disrupted by an unwelcome male visitor.

In Antarctica published in Antarctica a married woman who spends the night with a stranger in order to see what it feels like ends up in a spoiler alert. The less said about this the better.

All three stories are about men and what’s wrong with them. Seriously, there’s no other way to say it. ( )

This is the second short story of Keegan's that I have listened to, the first being Small Things Like These. I couldn't bring myself to buy a copy because it is so short, so listened to the audiobook that I borrowed from the library. It is good.

It is a tense story of a relationship; an irish man and a french woman where the key question comes halfway through the book - what is it that Irish men want? (You could take the Irish out of the equation.)

Cafal is a man bored or distracted from his job and to show this, Keegan details all the small actions he takes from losing a file on his computer to the woman who talks to him on the bus where he catches himself wishing that she would shut up. This is the first clue that not everything is alright in his world.

The story then goes on to detail his meeting Sabrine, their getting together, discussing marriage and becoming engaged although at each key point, something is said by Cafal that upsets Sabrine. He moans when he has to buy cherries from Lidl that cost 6 euros. He never cooks for her or brings her breakfast in bed and then he is upset at all her 'stuff' that she brings with her when she moves into his house. he compalins when he has to pay more for the engagement ring because the stones have been reset.

There is one point in the book when Cafal, his brother and father laugh at something they do to their mother. It was a cruel act, designed to humiliate a 60 year old woman by men who are misogynists. I found it almost unbearable and with Keegan's writing, terse and succinct, it was over and done in a couple of sentences. And then, Cafal's brother texts him about his situation. Is it too late in the day for Cafal to change his ways? Sadly, I suspect it might be because those around him are also misogynists and he doesn't sound like the type of man who would carve his own path. ( )