The stories might sometimes feel as if they are “playing to the gallery”, but they are so fine, I didn’t care, they’re so enjoyable. Possibly the best story is the first, The Coast of Leitrim. I also really enjoyed Roma Kid, but it petered out, taking an easy exit. ( )

I can see the appeal, but most of the stories just failed to move me. ( )

This is Kevin Barry's 3rd collection of short stories, set in small town and rural Ireland. I have a couple of his novels TBR but this is the first book by Kevin Barry I've actually read.

I thought many of the stories were about people looking for a way to deal with loneliness by making connections with others. In The Coast of Leitrim, Seamus is attracted to a Polish woman working in a cafe in town, and asks her out, but the idea of a relationship after being on his own for some time is kind of scary. In Roma Kid, a girl runs away from the responsibility of looking after her little brothers and finds a new life with an informal adoptive father figure.

These and other stories in the collection are interesting, but the characters remain a little too shadowy and mysterious for me. ( )

In the title story the need of two young people for each other is overwhelming, but uncertain. The ending is abrupt but highly satisfying. A sneakily good love story. In Deer Season a seventeen year-old seduces an older, somewhat vulnerable man, to the seeming detriment of them both. A standout line: “She entered a spell of heavy dreaming or quietude such as can open out sometimes in youth if the person is to be an artist.”

In Old Stock a man inherits a cottage in Sligo from his uncle, who claims with some of his last words it has some type of magic. “I can’t explain it but the women go mental fucken gamey as soon as they get a waft of the place at all.” And it appears to be so. “In this place I was calm, lucid, settled in my skin, and apparently ravishing. Elsewhere I was, as ever, a bag of spanners.”

A “connoisseur of death” stalks the streets of Limerick announcing the passing of people far and wide. When asked about his obsession with death, he says “I find it very…impressive.” Another man wanders Spain, talking with dogs and avoiding people due to a broken heart. In Roma Kid, almost a fairy tale or legend, a young refugee runs away and finds herself in the Ox Mountains with a broken ankle, where her life is saved and made whole.

The characters are often on the fringes of society and all the more observant and interesting for it. ( )

Despite the quality of the writing, KB can conjure up a similie that other authors would lose limbs for; there's a still a hit and miss feel to this. The swearing seems forced for some reason and the last story I found irritiating and not fitting with this collection. The theme is here is love, mostly lost love and being set in Ireland, rain plays a major part too and a linking at times to the land itself.
He's still a author whose command of language puts in a league of his own but I still don't think he's ever re-hit the heights of 'beer trip to Llandulo' which is for me, one of the most perfect short stories ever written. Still worth checking out though, the fact that all reviews on here mention different tales as their favourite shows how subjective the short story format is. Roma Kid was incredibly poignant. ( )