The Best of Benedict Kiely is a treasure trove of his best and most acclaimed stories, published to mark the centenary of the birth of this great twentieth-century Irish writer.
Mervyn Kavanagh, one of its wandering sons has been teaching in America's 'semi-Deep South', where he has acquired - and lost - a wife. As he sets off from Shannon toward tranquil Carmincross in the company of a former girlfriend, warm memories come flooding back. But one cloud proves impossible to dispel, for Mervyn is haunted by dark thoughts.
The book is divided into the four provinces of Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Connacht, with transitions south of the Boyne and in the Boyne Valley itself. Contents include poetry by Yeats, A.E., MacNeice, Kavanagh, Ledwidge and Gogarty, and songs of love, rebellion, and in praise of nature.
Among the best writers this company has published is Ireland's Benedict Kiely. His first book to be released in this country, The State of Ireland, received a front page New York Times Book Review notice in which Guy Davenport wrote, "The first meaning of 'the state of Ireland' is that it's a place where stories are still told, deliciously and by masters of the art, of whom Benedict Kiely is one, perhaps the foremost." This collection was foll...
