RaveThe Washington Independent Review of Books\"Keegan’s prose is known for its quiet intensity and crystalline spareness. Last year, her novella Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; at just under 120 pages, it was the shortest book ever to make the list. So Late in the Day’s prose is equally exceptional. The Irish author paints scenes in a line or two and can convey a lifetime saturated in misogyny (and a newfound self-awareness of it) in a single internal reflection ... This complexity is one reason that Keegan’s short stories often have the weight of novels. Even her antagonists aren’t dummies. She can write flawed, disappointing characters without being condescending toward them or making them ridiculous ... Each story in So Late in the Day offers readers the suspense one might feel when walking home alone late at night. Violence lurks in Keegan’s stories, just as it does in our real world, despite it being so late in the story of women and men.\
Tessa Hadley
RaveThe Washington Independent Review of Books\"The 12 stories in After the Funeral, Tessa Hadley’s fourth collection, are tonics for our news-laden, overstimulated times. Like a favorite cat sitting on you, these short tales are at once intelligent and twisty, cozy and intimate. Even while you’re with them, you’re already wishing for them not to leave.\
