The Hill Road

Bitter sadness, violence and regret bubble to the surface of rural Ireland in this prize-winning volume of novellas set in the fictional townland of Kilroan. O'Keeffe has a poetic sensiblilty and a way of describing the dustiness of long summer days akin to Laurie Lee's writing; like Lee, he can also twist the knife, populating his tales of bucolic idyll with drinkers, gamblers and the unhappily married.

O'Keeffe gently lulls the reader into a deep knowledge of his characters and the certainty that their lives are pegged to the land for as long as God allows. This is a place where murders and disappearances are covered up, and where fumbling sex in the graveyard has long-term untold consequences.

For the few that manage to leave Kilroan, return is either impossible or tragically difficult. O'Keeffe is particularly moving in his description of the plight of a First World War soldier who survives the horrors of France, but cannot readjust to the slow pace of rural life back home. Others emigrate to the United States or London, leaving the verdant fields of their homeland behind for ever.

Patrick O'Keeffe was born in County Limerick, where he grew up; he moved to Kentucky in his mid-twenties and has since settled in Michigan. His beautifully crafted stories are worthy compatriots of the work of his countrymen William Trevor and John McGahern, but he has clearly struck a chord in his adopted country, where The Hill Road was awarded the $20,000 Story Prize.