A review by joshgauthier
That Old Country Music: Stories by Kevin Barry

4.0

"Catastrophe was a low-slung animal creeping darkly across the ditches, across the hills."

I love Kevin Barry's work. That Old Country Music is his newest collection of stories, and as good as his past collections have been, this one feels somehow even more present, even more inhabited. Following the loves and losses, the violence and the beauty of its characters, the collection is quiet and intimate--and often unsettling. These are characters that do not expect you to like them. They simply exist. They fight and love and explore the world. They find hope. They experience loss. They are selfish, and they find solace in the presence of others.

Barry's voice is remarkable. He captures poetry and place and plums the depth of experience as he turns stories of even the simplest moments into profound and lingering reflections of what it means to age, to dream, to live. His writing is rich, his perspective wholly his own--and I am always happy to return to the landscapes and lives he brings into being on the page.