"Walking Away" by Philip O'Ceallaigh (1980)

Event Resources  Everyone Is Invited to Join Us for Irish Short Story Month Year Four

Ways to Participate-do a post on your blog and let me know about it-I will keep a master list and I will publicize your post and blog.

If you are an Irish author and would like to be featured, please contact me.   There are several options open.

If you would like to do a guest post on my blog on anything related to Irish short stories, contact me.

Author Bio

Philip O’Ceallaigh is the author of the short story collections Notes From A Turkish Whorehouse (2006), for which he was awarded the Rooney Prize, and The Pleasant Light of Day (2009). Both books are published by Penguin and were shortlisted for the Cork International Short Story Prize. He edited Sharp Sticks, Driven Nails (2010), a collection of contemporary short fiction. His stories have been widely anthologized and translated into a number of language

"Walking Away" begins with a man thinking about calling a woman he met at a funeral of one of his closest friends.   He has been thinking about calling her for two weeks now.   The fun in this story is seeing what both people want from the relationship.  When he calls she invites him over.   He can tell she comes from money by her house and her manner.   She shows him a novel she wrote.  One of the eternal questions in the battle between the sexes is when is it proper for a man to leave after having sex for the first and no doubt only time with a new woman.   This very well done work explores that question.   

I read this in The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story edited by Anne Enright.  I look forward to reading more of the author's work.