O'Keeffe, Patrick 1963–

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O'Keeffe, Patrick 1963–

PERSONAL: Born 1963, in Kilteely, County Limerick, Ireland; immigrated to United States. Education: University of Kentucky, B.A.; University of Michigan, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES: Office—Sweetland Writing Center, University of Michigan, 435 S. State St., 1130 Angell Hall, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1003. Agent—Rachel Calder, The Sayle Literary Agency, Bickerton House, 25-27 Bickerton Rd., London N19 5JT, England. E-mail—ppo@umich.edu.

CAREER: Worked on his family's farm and as a bartender, construction worker, and house painter. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, instructor.

AWARDS, HONORS: Roy W. Cowden Memorial fellow; Chamberlain Award for creative writing.

WRITINGS:

The Hill Road (stories), Viking (New York, NY), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Patrick O'Keeffe is an Irish-born writer who immigrated to the United States. His debut collection, The Hill Road, features four long stories set in rural Ireland during the 1950s and 1960s. As in O'Keeffe's own childhood, the cows are milked by hand and homes outside the main village often do not have electricity. The title story finds Jack Carmody enjoying the train ride from Limerick Junction to Dublin, a trip the author often made while training as a bartender in that city. "Her Black Mantilla" is the story of Alice, an elderly woman who meets the man who, because of his rejection of her older sister, changed the course of Alice's life. Like these stories, the remaining two, "The Postman's Cottage" and "That's Our Name," have strong themes of the "struggle with forgiveness," noted Lesley McDowell in a London Independent review. McDowell wrote that "this is vibrant, demanding, first-rate writing to keep you on your toes." In a review for Dublin's Sunday Business Post, Joanne Hayden said of The Hill Road that "the themes of the collection—love, obsession, greed, careless cruelty—are timeless." "O'Keeffe writes with piercing lyricism about a country in which behaviour and attitudes are underpinned by religion, poverty and absolute fidelity to the land," the critic added, calling the work "a book of chilling contrasts."