“I know of no writer on either side of the

Atlantic who is better at exploring the human spirit under assault than Billy

O’Callaghan.”—Robert Olen Butler

The prizewinning Irish short-story writer and author of the

highly praised novel, My Coney Island

Baby

, delivers his most accomplished book of short fiction to date—a

poignant story collection that “grips from the opening page” (Bernard

MacLaverty). 

These

are twelve poignant, quietly dazzling, and carefully crafted stories that

explore the resiliency of the human heart and its ability to keep beating in

the wake of bereavement, violence, lost love, and incomparable trauma and

grief.

 Spanning

a century and two continents, from the muddy fields of Ireland to a hotel room

in Paris, a dingy bar in Segovia to an airplane bound for Taipei, The Boatman and Other Stories follows an

unforgettable cast of characters. Three gunshots on the Irish border define the

course of a young man’s life; a writer clings fast to a star-crossed affair

with a woman who has never been fully within his reach; a fisherman accustomed

to hard labor rolls up his sleeves to dig a grave for his child; and a pair of

newlyweds embark on their first adventure, living wild on the deserted Beginish

Island.
 

Ranging

from the elegiac to the brutally confrontational, these densely layered tales

reveal the quiet heroism and gentle dignity of ordinary life. Billy O’Callaghan

is a master celebrant of the smallness of the human flame against the dark: its

strength and its steady brightness.