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Literary core samples exhibited + assayed
r/Canonade
I've just read Kevin Barry's 2018 short story "The Coast of Leitrim", and I think it's exceptional. Some lovely excerpts:
His words blurted at the burn of her brown-eyed stare. She didn’t lose the run of herself by way of a response but she said yes, it is very hot, and he believed that something at least cousinly to a smile softened her mouth and moved across her eyes.
...
The café’s toilet was located right by the kitchen, and Seamus could not but notice what looked like a rota pinned to the back of the kitchen door. Catching his breath one Monday morning, he reached in with his phone and took a photograph, and in this way he had her hours for the week got. Also, her full name.
...
If involved in any level of romance, he was given to lurchy moves and hot declarations, and always in the past he had scared the women off within a few dates.
...
To be able to stand back from and recognize his obsession as exactly that did not lessen its extent nor remove its danger.
...
As the summer aged he became unseated by her trust of him and by her apparent want for him. What kind of a maniac could fall for the likes of me, he wondered. The question was unanswerable and terrifying.
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