I first came across Irish writer Claire Keegan’s ‘So Late in the Day’ as a standalone long/short story in the New Yorker. Reading it again (a Christmas present), after so many glowing reviews, I felt a little discomforted finding my original prejudice against this accomplished novella confirmed. Which is, that it is more a polemic than a prose fiction. The unpleasant protagonist, Cathal, a witless misogynist, seems to be set up as a straw man so that Keegan can make probably not inaccurate, but not especially enlightening, observations about the contemporary young Irish male, maybe young males in general. In all fairness, I should set this against her portrayal of the fundamentally decent, brave and tender-hearted middle-aged Bill Furling in her Booker short-listed ‘Small Things Like These’. Perhaps men can improve with age.
Perhaps, but in ‘So Late’ it appears some can hardly get worse. Spelt out clearly for us in the dramatic climax (occurring before a crucial plot point of realisation for the reader), where Cathal’s fiancée, Sabine, thoroughly provoked, gives him both barrels: ‘a good half of men your age just want us to shut up and give you what you want, that you’re spoiled and turn contemptible when things don’t go your way’. Immediately confirmed by Cathal thinking ‘that he would not have minded her shutting up right then and giving him what he wanted’. Which is pretty unlikely as Sabine continues: ‘to some of you we are just c***s…often hear(s) Irish men referring to women in this way, and calling us whores and bitches’. A little later, unsurprisingly, she breaks off the engagement.
Which brings me to the two related problems I have with this story. The first is with Cathal. Here Keegan stacks the deck. Not only is he a misogynist, he is also a skinflint, lazy, mean-minded, ungrateful, spiteful, has a bad diet, and doesn’t wash his hands after peeing. But all this wouldn’t worry me too much if from his experience in the novel, Cathal actually learnt something about himself. Here is a man who stupidly and selfishly throws away a possible chance of life-long happiness. Although he is vaguely depressed at the outcome of events, he appears to have no realisation of how or even that he has caused this. In due time he could quite ineptly repeat it with another woman. So we spend our time through this novella journeying with a man who learns nothing and who seems incapable of learning. There are people like this of course, plenty, but so what? Why is Keegan leading me on to invest in this deadbeat.
And then there is Sabine. Why on earth is she attracted to him? What does she see in Cathal to the point of agreeing to live out her life with him? Throughout, we are mostly inside Cathal’s dull head and we are given little insight into what Sabine is thinking except when she speaks. She willingly enters into a relationship with a man as described above, then agrees to marry him, then she breaks it off. These are weighty matters (the actual story, surely) but they seem to happen inadvertently, offstage, as do (coyly?) any sexual relations.
However, the writing of all this, the presentation, organisation of material, is masterly. Wikipedia tells me that Keegan won the inaugural William Trevor Prize, and it is this Anglo/Irish writer that came most to mind as an influence. Keegan has mastered Trevor’s pared plain prose that packs in a Henry James sentence. With deft observations we quickly gain a clear portrait of Cathal. The placing of narrative detail and gradual exposure, the build-up, is all subtly managed so that when we come to the turning point, the realisation of what this particular day is and what is happening, what has happened, it has that effect of revelation that all short story writers strive for.
But still, it is only a revelation of story and not of character. Keegan presents a highly polished surface, but really little more than that. Her great skill becomes a sort of sleight-of-hand. Crucially, psychological depth, and psychological progression, motivation, character growth and insight are not given and can only be guessed at. With Cathal at the end we are back where we started and none the wiser. And we are not much the wiser with Sabine as well.
In her ‘Small Things Like These’, Keegan gave us a short, but profound and deeply moving experience. With ‘So Late in the Day’, the lack of a like resonance seems incommensurate with her talents.