A Fanatic Heart: Selected Stories

by Edna O'Brien

In these selections from twenty years of her best short fiction, Edna O'Brien pulls the reader into a woman's experience. Her stories portray a young Irish girl's view of obsessive love and its often wrenching pain, while tales of contemporary life show women who open themselves to sexuality, to disappointment, to madness. Throughout, there is always O'Brien's voice—wondrous, despairing, moving—examining passionate subjects that lay bare the desire and needs that can be hidden in a woman's heart.

Genres: Short Stories, Ireland, Fiction, Irish Literature, 20th Century, Short Story Collection, Literature

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Edna O’Brien was an award-winning Irish author of novels, plays, and short stories. She has been hailed as one of the greatest chroniclers of the female experience in the twentieth century. She was the 2011 recipient of the Frank O’Connor Prize, awarded for her short story collection Saints and Sinners. She also received, among other honors, the Irish PEN Award for Literature, the Ulysses Medal from University College Dublin, and a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Literary Academy. Her 1960 debut novel, The Country Girls, was banned in her native Ireland for its groundbreaking depictions of female sexuality. Notable works also include August Is a Wicked Month (1965), A Pagan Place (1970), Lantern Slides (1990), and The Light of Evening (2006). O’Brien lived in London until her death.

Reviews

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edna O'Brien is a hallowed name in Irish literature - considered to be the 'doyenne', if one can believe Wikipedia. So it was with positive glee I picked this up cheap at a bookstore two years ago. I started to read it - but then I found I could not get into the groove, and left it for a time, before restarting it a month back. It sometimes happens to me that if a book does not impress me at a certain point of time, I can defer it and return to it later when I am in a different frame of mind. Well, it did not happen with this collection.

Ms. O'Brien writes powerfully. Her prose has a certain style, seemingly made up of flat statements but building to a tremendous crescendo. Even though she does not do inner monologue as such, the workings of the minds of her characters - almost exclusively women - is the mainstay of her stories. These women, who many a time narrate the story in first person, are almost always tortured by inner demons. This seething invisible world permeates the stories.

Many stories set in the Ireland of her childhood (the stories in this section, Returning, are almost always exclusively narrated in the first person) contain three themes I have come to associate with the country during the early decades of the last century(based on Frank McCourt's book, to some extent, I must confess): extreme poverty, sickness and squalor and a sense of sin and redemption, engendered by strict Catholicism. These stories are powerful (especially The Doll and Sister Imelda), but they are on the extreme side of depressing.

Another theme which is recurrent is the longing (often illicit) of a woman for a man (The Love Object, Mrs. Rheinhardt) - a longing which goes largely unfulfilled. Because what the woman wants or imagines is seldom available in reality. Any idol, looked too closely, will be found to have feet of clay.

However, I must say that these stories had a sameness which palled on me after a time. The themes were so similar that many stories seemed to be different versions of the same thing. I wavered between 2 and 3 stars for a long time - in the end decided to plump for three, just to acknowledge the beautiful prose.

[JimZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are 29 stories in this collection of short stories.

25 of them are from four prior collection of short stories that I have been reading over the last 10 days or so:
• The Love Object and Other Stories (1969) – 5 stories came from this collection. I gave this 8-story collection 5 stars.
• A Scandalous Woman (1974) – 4 stories came from this collection. I gave this 9-story collection 3.5 stars.
• A Rose in the Heart (1979) – 7 stories came from this 12-story collection. I gave the collection 2.6 stars.
• Returning (1981) – all 9 stories from this collection were in this collection. I gave it 4 stars.
The last 4 stories from ‘A Fanatic Heart’ had not been published in any prior collection, but had been published in The New Yorker from 1979 to 1981, and were interrelated. (Most of the stories had been previously published in The New Yorker.)

I would give this collection 3.5 stars. I was quite enthused with three of the prior collections but the last collection I did not like so much (A Rose in the Heart).

The foreword for this collection was written by Philip Roth.

Reviews:
• By the author Mary Gordon: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytim...
• A very good review but beware – the reviewer gives away the endings of many of the stories…..I would not wanted to have read this review before delving into this collection because what’s the point? The reviewer told us the gist of the stories! https://www.enotes.com/topics/fanatic...

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I asked the writer Walter Mosley about Edna O'Brien recently, she having tutored him around the time he decided to make a go of writing as a vocation, and he said "I think she is the greatest living writer working in the English language." I have not read her entire corpus, but what I have read of her work has not dissuaded me of the possible, even likely correctness of Mosley's assessment. The stories collected here focus almost exclusively on women, and they are almost all of a melancholy or bleak texture, yet the overall effect I did not find depressing, owing largely to O'Brien's skill as a verbal portrait artist of the human heart. A theme I detect throughout these stories is that for many people the longing for continuity in one's life experiences is more pressing and urgent than the desire for happiness. Of the stories in this volume the one that expresses this most clearly is the little gem "Christmas Roses", but there are many others here that contain the same leitmotiv. O'Brien's women are easily stereotyped from without, but like most great writers she exposes their internality and the complexity thereof with extraordinary skill and compassion.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read this book many times -but this read just knocked me out -such beautiful writing such an understanding of the human heart, the great joys the impossible pains. I adore Edna O`Brien`s writing she visits with these characters that have simple lives from the outside and complex inner lives madly passionate ,deeply sad and unfair. All set in small villages or near big towns and how loneliness can make you do very unexpected things and cause such despair. that said they don`t make me sad these stories they take me with them as they struggle to do the best they can with what they have - sigh just gorgeous writing-

[Pedro Costa · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Only on "A Scandalous Woman") A very true and disturbing depiction of the Irish working class in the 70s, while also exposing the patriarchal society of the time, proving to be an emancipating short story through O'Brien's amazing sensatorial writing

[Molly Ferguson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories in this book are gorgeous. I assigned several of them for my class, and the students' favorites were "The Connor Girls" and "Irish Revel". She writes with such depth of emotion, and such restraint. However, what keeps this from 5 stars is that eventually, story after story of disappointed young women and disillusioned mistresses starts to wear on a reader. O'Brien has carved out her niche.

[Elham Nosrati · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best short story collections that I have ever read.

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous writing, penetrating and generally painful insights into the hearts and minds of women. As others have noted, the cumulative effect is a bit depressing, but O'Brien is a masterful writer and I expect to reread many of the stories in this volume.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written short stories. Two common subjects seem to be having a child narrator who in some way loses innocence and women having affairs with married men. She is very acute on the obsession of women when they are in love. And she gets across the claustrophobia of rural village life wonderfully. Inspiring.

[Sonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four and a half stars. Impressions to come.

[Bobbi Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know why it took me so long to read this collection of short stories. Or maybe I do. Philip Roth raves about O'Brien in its introduction,and since I love Roth I was looking forward to it. O'Brien certainly can write, but these pieces have a depressing sameness to them. It isn't that they're mostly about sex-- that's one of Roth's main subjects, if not THE main one. And Roth has never been afraid of unsympathetic characters. Maybe it takes a genius like Roth to get away with whatever he wants to. The typical O'Brien character is a woman waiting by the phone or at the door or in the bar for a man. She could be the mistress of the man or married to the man, who has a mistress; the waiting is the same. --These women are authentic and sometimes avoid being merely pitiful. I just can't relate to them.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every one of O'Brien's stories brings me immense satisfaction as a reader. Every story is so rich, so different from the next. She sets stories in diverse decades and geographies and creates characters with differing moral centers, yet remains convincing in her observations. She is an expert at the art of writing. I recommend this collection to anyone looking to study stories that are well-crafted, yet enormously entertaining. O'Brien illuminates situations so that as a reader, I feel nothing is left out.

[Brandi Moore-Declue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim for a buck at powells. I have already finished the first story and I think I may have found a new favorite short story writer...well...next to Cheever and a few others anyway. :)

[Marla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved her stories in this book.

[Wm Hardy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Late in getting around to reading these short stories, my loss. Penetrating, almost frightening, is Ms O’Brien’s ability’s to see into the heart and then beautifully record her observations.

[julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first collection of Edna O’Brien and I’m torn between wanting to explore further and feeling as if I’ve read enough. To read her stories would be to believe that no married person is ever faithful, no man is ever good (or sober if he can help it), and no woman is ever happy (for long). The reader never gains much insight into the male characters. Her female characters have great longing and passion, inevitably attend a school with nuns along the way, make funny remarks about their neighbors and acquaintances and often suffer physical/sexual and psychological harm at the hands of above mentioned drunken men. There is a bit of repetition in themes.

My favorites were Paradise, Ways, and Mrs. Reinhardt, all of which took place outside of Ireland. It was worth the book to discover those, and the writing throughout is dynamite. Paradise above all, The Return too, was beautiful. Sister Imelda was unexpected. Overall a collection that, even for its repetitiveness, will stay with me.

[Josephine Ensign · Rating 3 out of 5]

Biting stories that are sometimes difficult to read due to the level of domestic violence and bitterness. I was hard-pressed to find a single 'good man' in this collection of short stories. Perhaps that is the point, and I'm glad to read/hear a strong woman's voice, but I found them too limiting in the end. There are enough parts that I like to incline me to read one of her novels, or perhaps her more recent short story collections.

[Natanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not nearly as sentimental as the title makes these stories seem; they are quite the opposite, in fact. Though O'Brien's subjects include childhood, the horrible finality of the past, nostalgia, regret, overhwelming grief, family, and intimacy, she deals with all in ways neither sappy nor gentle. Her stories are devastating. "Wilderness" is one of the best stories I have read about loss.

[David Layden]

easy to read.....by no means does this mean it is light.....wonderful detail of nature and the inside of homes......daily life......the workings of a female heart and what is expected of the male heart.....

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

BEST SHORT STORY COLLECTION EVER! FAVORITE STORY OF ALL TIME IS THE LOVE OBJECT FROM THIS COLLECTION!

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

i hate short stories (i know i know its a sin but i do so there) but Edna O'Brien short stories captured me. She tells stories of women's normal life in Ireland. Highly recommended.

[A. Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This selection of almost thirty stories, spanning O'Brien's career, is a terrific journey with a sure and steady voice as guide. Don't come to O'Brien for cheery stories.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certainly it is worth getting to know O’Brien’s short stories. Maybe a collection of 29 of them is a bit excessive? Her stories enact a kind of dissection of a woman’s inner world, slicing it down to smaller and smaller bits or elements of narrative, until she is describing what is happening moment by moment. And each of these tiny atoms of story includes within itself the DNA of the larger story. Moment by moment, each of O’Brien’s characters reports what she is doing and thinking; and equally as important, what is being done to her. It starts to feel a bit self indulgent or repetitive, but only after the first 15 or so stories.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first Edna O'Brien work I ever read. I remember I bought it as soon as it was published and that was the year I moved in with my fiance. I found the writing powerfully affecting, being a woman in my 30s at the time. I would recommend it wholeheartedly.

[Francesca · Rating 5 out of 5]

L’ho preso per caso dalla mia libreria, il titolo è sicuramente fuorviante, non si tratta di storie d’amore romantico o racconti a lieto fine. L’autrice riesce a descrivere benissimo la realtà dei rapporti amorosi e non.
12 racconti ognuno che lascia un qualcosa di diverso. Amarezza, stupore, delusione. Non è un libro “per sognatori” ma la cruda realtà senza illusioni. 5/5 ⭐️

[Thomas McDade · Rating 5 out of 5]

"On the evidence of this collection of two decades' work, Edna O'Brien is a master of sensuous recall, fiercely engaged still by her Irish memories, and as brilliant as anyone writing short stories in English."
-Philip Roth

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delicious book of short stories centered around the travails of women. Mistresses, wives, school girls…..all trying to make their way in the world.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn’t for me. I struggle with anthologies of short stories. I can appreciate the quality of the writing and the content of the stories, but not for me.

[Jeff Hobbs]

(The stories are not listed chronologically. They belong originally to the following collections:
The Love Object and Other Stories (1968)--LO
A Scandalous Woman and Other Stories (1974)--SW
Mrs. Reinhardt and Other Stories (1978)--MR
Returning (1982)--R
A Fanatic Heart (1985)--FH
Lantern Slides (1990)--LS)

Read so far:

*The Connor girls (R)--
My mother's mother (R)--
Tough men (R)--
*The doll (R)--
The bachelor (R)--
Savages (R)--
Courtship (R)--
Ghosts (R)--
Sister Imelda (R)--3
*The love object (LO)--
The mouth of the cave (LO)--
*Irish revel, aka Come into the drawing room, Doris (LO)--
*The rug (LO)--
*Paradise (LO)--
*A scandalous woman (SW)--
Over (SW)--
*The creature (SW)--
The house of my dreams (SW)--
*Number 10 (MR)--
Baby blue (MR)--
The small-town lovers (MR)--
*Christmas roses (MR)--
Ways (MR)--
*A rose in the heart of New York (MR)--
Mrs. Reinhardt (MR)--
Violets (FH)--
The call (FH)--
The plan (FH)--
The return (FH)--
***
Another time (LS)
A bed of roses
Cords (LO)
Dramas (LS)
How to grow a wisteria (LO)
In the hours of darkness (MR)
A journey (SW)
The outing (LO)
Sin
What a sky (LS)
Wilderness

[Abby Peck · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic collection of Edna O'Brien's short stories, I loved many of them and liked every one.