Author, Book review, Claire Keegan, Faber and Faber, Fiction, Ireland, literary fiction, Publisher, Setting, short stories

‘So Late in the Day’ by Claire Keegan

kimbofo

Fiction – hardcover; Faber & Faber; 43 pages; 2023.

Claire Keegan’s So Late in the Day is a sublime tale about a man who is not what he first appears to be.

This short story was first published as a standalone text in 2022 by Keegan’s French publisher, Sabine Wespieser, under the title Misogynie (which might give you a slight inkling as to what it is about).

It is set on a single summer’s day — Friday 29 July — but despite the sunshine and “a taste of cut grass” in the air, something is amiss.

Lonely man

Keegan paints an evocative portrait of Cathal, an office worker in Dublin, who seems lonely and unsure of himself, but as the story unfolds, we learn that our pity for the protagonist is misplaced.

Cathal, we discover, once fell in love with a British-Franco woman called Sabine. He suggested that she move in with him (to save her paying the rent) and then asked, in a roundabout way, for her hand in marriage.

But Sabine is now gone and Cathal is spending Friday night alone at home, eating cake and drinking champagne with only his cat for company. What happened?

The story of their love affair is revealed in flashbacks and provides glimpses of Cathal’s personality through the things he says and does.

When Sabine moves into his house, for instance, he doesn’t like that she brings all her possessions with her, including a desk and chair, a bookshelf, boxes of books and DVDs, clothes and artwork. “What did you imagine?” she asks him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Not this. Just not this.”
“I cannot understand,” she told him. “You knew I had to leave the flat in Rathgar by the end of the month. You asked me to come here, to marry you.”
“I just didn’t think it would be like this, is all,” he said. “I just thought about your being here and having dinner, waking up with you. Maybe it’s just too much reality.”

Mean with money

Cathal is also the sort of person who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. In other words, he is mean with money.

He begrudges paying six euros for a bag of cherries, for instance, even though he knows Sabine needs the fruit for a classic clafoutis she is going to bake him. He also resents paying a separate fee to get a Chinese meal delivered when Sabine says she’s too tired to walk to the restaurant to pick up the food.

But it’s how he reacts when he finds out the jeweller wants to charge an additional 128 euros (plus VAT) to have Sabine’s engagement ring resized that is most telling.

“Do you think I’m made of money?” he’d said — and immediately felt the shadow of his father’s language crossing over his life, on what should have been a good day, if not one of his happiest.

No compromise

At its most basic, So Late in the Day is the tale of a man who doesn’t understand the concept of compromise or the need for give and take in a relationship.

But it’s also a story about misogynistic attitudes and is a pitch-perfect examination of what happens when you are stuck in your ways, view the world in a narrow-minded, mean-spirited way and refuse to be generous.

Quick to read, it brims with insightful observations about human behaviour and the power dynamics within relationships.

The story is currently issued as a slim (but expensive) single volume, but you can read it for free on The New Yorker website, where it was first published in February 2022.

Published by kimbofo

I am a book obsessive who has been charting my reading life online since the early 2000s.

18 thoughts on “‘So Late in the Day’ by Claire Keegan”

  2. I’ve been looking forward to reading this since hearing her speak about the story at Melbourne Writers Festival earlier this year (will set aside some time on the weekend).

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  3. This is a little gem. Thanks so much for telling us about the New Yorker route to reading it. How strange – even though it has an Anglo-French ‘heroine’ – that it was published first in France.

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  4. I enjoyed this fine, but I think I found it a little underwhelming. Had it been included in a collection I would have thought it a really good short story, but the publishing of it in its own volume led me to expect more I think.

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    1. Admittedly, when I wrote my first draft I began with “I’m not sure the story is strong enough to justify being published as a standalone text” and then I slept on it and redrafted without that line because past experience tells me that’s all people will focus on. I agree it would be better as part of a collection and I resent having paid $20 for it (which is 12 euros) so I was annoyed to find I could have read it for free online! (I sound like Cathal whining about money 😆)

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    1. It’s certainly not cheap… I bought it for myself as a “treat” (and it would make a lovely gift for someone, perhaps with some chocolates or bottle of wine). You could, in fact, get a paperback with a much higher page count for the same price…

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  8. Pingback: Best books of 2023 | list the first – This Reading Life

  9. I missed you review of this kimbofo… November was one of this year’s crunch months plus the fact that I’m not catching blog posts in my old routine way partly because of me and partly because of WP. I am glad you liked it, notwithstanding the $20! That would irritate me a little. $10 (around the more usual price for small books) and than finding it online would not have felt so bad I’m guessing.

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