Hibernians Present: An Interview with Author Kevin Barry

AOH Brother Timothy Noonan interviews Irish Author Kevin Barry about his new book “That Old Country Music” a collection of short stories.

—About the Author—

Booker Prize-longlisted and International Dublin Literary Award-winning novelist and New Yorker- published short story writer Kevin Barry, author of the acclaimed books Night Boat to Tangier, Beatlebone, City of Bohane, Dark Lies the Island, and There Are Little Kingdoms returns this fall with the highly-anticipated THAT OLD COUNTRY MUSIC: Stories (Doubleday; January 12, 2021; $23.95) — a new collection showcasing eleven exquisite and transporting tales shot through with the dark, primal powers of Ireland’s timeless language, characters, and landscapes.

Since his landmark debut collection, There Are Little Kingdoms, and his award-winning second book, Dark Lies the Island, Kevin Barry has become recognized as one of the world’s most accomplished and gifted short story writers.

In this third collection, THAT OLD COUNTRY MUSIC, readers return to reencounter another ragbag set of western Irish characters, many on the cusp between love and catastrophe, heartbreak and epiphany, resignation and hope. These stories show an Ireland in a condition of great flux but also as a place where older rhythms, and an older magic, somehow persist.

Summoning the haunting beauty and power of the rural Irish countryside masterfully, Barry’s characters and their situations are rendered as both sad and funny, melancholy and magical in the classic Hibernian manner. His lyric intensity, the vitality of his comedy, and the darkness of his vision recall the work of masters of the genre like Flannery O’Connor and William Trevor, but he has forged a style which is patently his own.