The collection begins with "The Coast of Leitrim," which follows Seamus, a man with "the misfortune in life to be fastidious and to own a delicacy of feeling. There's not a bad story in the bunch, and it's as accomplished a book as Barry has ever written. Barry casts a wide net, writing about a varied cast of people - some hardened by life, some still vulnerable - living in western Ireland. Never has that been clearer than in That Old Country Music, his newest short story collection. But he's never descended into hard-boiled cliché - while some of his characters boast a kind of tough-guy swagger, he's just as interested in the softer specimens of humanity, and you always get the feeling that there's a touch of the romantic hiding just beneath the surface of his fiction. In books like City of Bohane and Night Boat to Tangier, the Irish author has turned his eye to gangsters, drug smugglers and other assorted criminals, both petty and felonious. Kevin Barry has never shied away from the dark side.
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