Antarctica by Claire Keegan: short story collection review

Antarctica’s trouble is that the first two stories are just too strong to prevent inevitable disappointment as the collection continues. No stories after these are ever as vital and emotionally present. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any that were good or entertaining, but it’s hard to reach such a high from the jump. This is more a fault of sequencing than with the collection itself. Many collections only manage a small handful of truly great short stories—Colin Barrett maintains that's all you need for a collection to be good. But I was always hoping the best was yet to come, and slowly lost my will to continue as I progressed.

Particularly, these early stories stand out as they showcase the opposite poles of Keegan at her best. “Antarctica,” the title story, stands apart from Keegan's best known work (think Foster) and many of her short stories in general because it departs from the focus on rural lives and children as protagonists. Instead, this story features a disillusioned mother running from a version of her life that feels set in stone. There’s a wild twist and a tension that comes both from the character’s situation and the external action. In contrast, “Men and Women” is a deeply revealing story about marriage as well but through the eyes of a child. I, controversially, find this to be a stronger glimpse through a child’s perspective than in Foster. There’s a loss of innocence through the story and an arrival at understanding that is beautifully rendered. Those two stories have stuck in my brain for weeks, and I keep returning to them in idle moments in a way no other Keegan has managed to resonate for me. There are other enjoyable stories that are also frontloaded. “Love in the Tall Grass” explores how allowing love to become all consuming can ruin your life. “Where the Water’s Deepest” has beautiful prose and pushes Keegan, again, out of her comfort zone, though in Antarctica this is less established in the time she was writing than it is now looking back on a full body of work. 

It is the later stories that struggled to capture my attention as much, and perhaps it’s a product of its publication in 1999 or some other context that I’m missing, but I was surprised by the gratuitous use of the n-word in multiple stories. This move was entirely unnecessary and put a disconcerted taste in my mouth. It is interesting how much Keegan endeavors to write about the American South in this collection with varying levels of success. I find it interesting when people move beyond the settings they innately understand, but the way Keegan renders it on the page makes it clear that there's a thinness to her understanding, and it just doesn't work here. These are blended with stories across Ireland and in London which gives the collection an interesting dynamic that her other work doesn’t have to the same degree. 

While Keegan has her shining moments, I don’t quite find myself as dazzled by Keegan as some. Perhaps it’s all the hype or that her typical subject matter doesn’t resonate as deeply with me. I'm realizing that these aren't books that I would've chosen to finish on my own. Still, it was interesting to study her work for a class last fall and take a deeper dive. 

Overall: 3.5 

More on Reading, Writing, and Me:

five star book tag

reflecting on 9 years of RWM

A Good Person review

February Reading Wrap Up