Rick O’Shea’s top recommendations for short stories set on the dark side of life

Stories by Claire Keegan, Roald Dahl, Blindboy Boatclub and June Caldwell venture into places that are dark and macabre

Rick O'Shea talking to Claire Keegan at Dalkey Book Festival. Photo: Conor McCabe Photography

Rick O'Shea

I was sitting backstage with Claire Keegan at our event last weekend at the Dalkey Book Festival. She asked me if I enjoyed doing events like the one we were about to do. I said that I wasn’t sure if I did, that I found them stressful. Sometimes, for days in the run-up to a particularly big one I’ll be fit to be tied and a general nightmare to be around for my loved ones. “So why do them?” she asked.

Ninety minutes later, I walked off stage with my usual answer — it had been one of those nights where I come away sure that public interviewing of people whose work I admire is the thing I am best at in life. That swing from low to high is the consequence of being a perfectionist with low self-esteem, impostor syndrome — and yet no fear of public performance. It’s a high I don’t get from any other work I do.

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