THE TEAPOTS ARE OUT

Seventeen tales from Keane (An Irish Christmas Feast, 2002, etc.), the late and much-lamented Kerry saloonkeeper who was perhaps one of Ireland’s best storytellers since Sean O’Faolain.

Keane’s Ireland is a land of sleepy villages full of silent bachelor farmers who live with their mothers and never venture forth except to market, pub, or Mass—a nostalgic stereotype, perhaps, but an enchanting one that conjures up images of a lost world. Many of these pieces are yarns rather than stories: “Guaranteed Pure,” for example, describes a forlorn American who goes to Ireland in search of a virginal bride and ends up marrying a girl he met dressed in an old Sunrise Flour (“Guaranteed Pure”) sack, while “You’re On Next Sunday” relates the unfortunate adventures of a drunken farmer who plays a game of football with a team of ghosts—they’re so impressed with his skill that they draft him for the squad. But it’s not all blarney. Many of the tales are stark (and not wholly appealing) portraits of the simplicity of rural life. The title story offers a glimpse of life inside an intensely unhappy house shared by a married couple and a sister-in-law who live together but eat at three separate tables, and “Protocol” is a humorous if depressing account of a taciturn farmer who spends an entire evening drinking with neighbors before telling them that his brother has just died. Some of the stories are openly sentimental—in “The Fort Field,” for example, an old man comes to appreciate that his beloved meadow is “a land worth fighting for”—while others are more wry (as when an entire village is transformed by a sexy blond tourist in “The Change”). Best is “The Curriculum Vitae,” a Christmas tale about a hapless village postmaster who rebelliously defies everyone (including his gorgon of a wife) by awarding a postal job to a meek, unemployed father.

A rich and delightful feast from an old master.