A Fanatic Heart. Selected Stories

Love and loss, the villages and countryside of western Ireland, sexual intimacy and social alienation - everything that makes Edna O'Brien such a distinctive voice in contemporary fiction is contained in these stories. In the brilliant "A Rose in the Heart of New York", the singlemindedness of love dramatically upsets the relationship between a girl and her mother, while in "Sister Imelda", "Number Ten", "Savages" and "The Creature", the strong ties between teacher and student, husband and wife, inseparable girl friends, and mother and son are ultimately destroyed in the crucible of time and fallibility. The stories in this volume include all nine from Returning, four interrelated stories that have previously appeared in The New Yorker and the author's own selections from The Love Object, A Scandalous Woman and Mrs Reinhardt.