"The Coffin Master: And Other Stories - Tapa blanda

These fourteen short stories, many of which have already won prestigious awards, show the widely acclaimed Irish writer working at the height of his power. They move from the precise realism of an Irish pub in the transition stage from traditional music to modern rock, to stories about times and places that are not quite real and not quite magical.

John Deane follows up the success of his last novel, In the Name of the Wolf, with this striking collection, two of which are literary prizewinners in Ireland. Strange and wonderful characters people these stories: a young woman desperately hoping that the physical denials of a convent will cleanse her of her sensuality; a coffin master using his near-magical skills with wood and rope and pulleys in an attempt to restore the psychic equilibrium of his island community; an old man who keeps chickens finds beauty in a wild kind of order when his wife dies.