Published as a novella with little more than forty pages, this would seem more suited to a collection of Claire Keegan’s short stories. Told from the viewpoint of Cathal, a single man who works in a Dublin office, facts are revealed gradually for the reader to piece together impressions of the characters, of recent events, and a strong sense of place, all expressed in the author’s clear, spare prose. The details are banal, but there is the building up of tension to some crisis, which so often marks the author’s work.

Although apparently completing tasks competently, Cathal seems unsettled even depressed. In different ways, the female staff and his boss treat him warily, for some as yet unexplained reason and he appears to go out of his way to avoid them. After work, his thoughts keep returning to Sabine, a woman he has gone out with for months, to whom he’s even proposed marriage, but it is clear that they are longer together.

Despite the vivid prose like that of the opening paragraph with “the brazen sun.. reaching onto Cathal’s desk” and “when a shadow crossed….a gulp of swallows skirmishing, high up, in camaraderie”, the development of the plot lacks subtlety compared with that of Keegan’s novels, “Foster” and “Small Things like These”. Is this because the author’s strong views about misogyny and the ingrained attitudes of some Irish men have caused her to lose objectivity, and stereotype her male characters?

Yet I would still recommend this story because it is likely to promote discussion, not least about the behaviour of men in Ireland, and perhaps elsewhere, and suggestions for improving their relationships with women. Also, should we question Sabine’s actions as regards the extent to which they are premeditated, and if so, justified?