The Heather Fields and Other StoriesIn The Heather Fields, Reynolds' only friend has drowned and his neighbours have turned against him. Facing a cold and lonely future, he is simply marking time until his death, with only some pigs, chickens and the scolding shade of his mother for company. Life is as cruel as the land in The Eye of the Beholder. Living alone on a small, failing farm, Augustine Honeywell yearns for companionship, but God has dealt him 'a hand with not even one trump. Not an ace, not a king, not a knave; and above all, not a queen.' And in Down on the Farm, a modest lottery win allows the lustful Valentine Kidney to escape the 'wholesome and disinfected petting' that passes for romance in Killnamaine. Set in island communities in small-town rural Ireland, peopled with the marginalized and forgotten, these nine stories address life's most profound questions - the nature of existence and the purpose of being. |
Contents
The Heather Fields | 3 |
The Long Goodbye | 175 |
The Eye of the Beholder | 189 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
beauty began Big Tom bike body breath Brother Bonaventure Brother Juniper Brother Leo Brother Sebastian bushes cats compline darkness Deirdre door Doreen earth eejit empty Ephraim face Father fingers floor furze garden gazed gently girls glass glaur Gráinne grass grinned hand hard head hear heard heather Heatherfield hens Hugey inside Joan Macken jungle music kitchen laneway laughed leaned lifted light living looked Lucozade Mason memory of light monastery Mother mouth moved night Nora once pain pigs poem quickly Randy Reynolds felt Reynolds knew Reynolds stood Reynolds's rhododendron road seemed shifting shook side silence sitting slowly smiled somewhere soul sound soutane Springdale stomach stones suddenly suffering thing thought tiny Tom rushed took tried turned Valentine vellum voice waited walked wall watched window wonderful words yard