From Publishers Weekly
The unique voice of Kiely, termed the "Irish Balzac," richly resonates in this collection of sprightly stories. In his well-received novel, Nothing Happens in Carmincross, Kiely wove a marvelously meandering tale of a writer's return to Ireland from a sabbatical at a college in the South, where the beauty of the American female may have gotten him off-track. Echoes of that richly embroidered telling are heard in the long story-letter that gives title to this collection. In "Peachtree," the narrator cautions his American student and inamorata: "If anybody in time to come ever reads this letter, found in a tin box in a hole in the ground on Kennesaw mountain, it may be said that it is merely a zany folktale from an island that once was, way out in the eastern sea," but, in fact, "Here I give you a genuine slice, or bottle, of old Ireland, as I ate, or drank, it." Perhaps the least accessible of the stories in the group, it is nevertheless a tour de force of narrative finesse, crisscrossing Gaelic myths and legends with picaresque happenings among contemporary people. Other shorter tales picture country boys making contact with the larger world of the town or village ("Your Left Foot Is Crazy"; "The Jeweller's Boy"). A more sophisticated venue emerges in "The Python" for the summer dalliance of an amorous academic in New York. Ironic twists and an antic delving into the rich heritage that undergirds traditional Irish society resonate also in a wider community.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
"Curious thing, environment," states Brinsley MacNamara in the title story. Indeed it is, and Kiely captures the Irish environment better than any contemporary writer. From the opening "Eton Crop," a stylistic tour de force, to "A Letter to Peachtree," Kiely captures both the beauty and bitterness of Irish life. The stories are often inspired by historyas in "Mock Battle," where the problems of a divided nation are dramatized in a married couple's private battleor love of landas in "A Walk in the Wheat," where a daughter discovers what she and her father have lost in being exiled in America. Yet ultimately it is Kiely's humor that distinguishes these works.Donald P. Kaczvinsky, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
