Patrick O'Keeffe Selected Works

Reminiscent of Alice Munro and William Trevor, Patrick O'Keeffe's lyrical eloquence expressively unveils the cloistered world of a rural southwestern Irish town and its inhabitants. Brimming with thoughtful, gorgeous prose and linked by setting and circumstances that span generations, the four novellas in The Hill Road revolve around the parish of Kilroan and its inhabitants, and how, over time, the people and the community itself are transfigured by life-changing events. Marked by love, devotion, secrets, unfulfilled dreams, family intimacies, and missed opportunities, these characters embody the rugged unfolding of the landscape—a volatile place of natural beauty where stories alter lives.

As he did so masterfully in the connected novellas of The Hill Road, Patrick O’Keeffe’s first novel moves back and forth in time and place to weave the story of two Irish families forever linked by love, secrets, and their heritage. James Dwyer was born in rural county Limerick before moving to Dublin as a teenager and ultimately settling in Ann Arbor. One night James’s past appears in the form of a down-and-out man named Walter, who issues an invitation for James to come to Upstate New York to visit his old childhood neighbor, Kevin Lyons. Although neither James nor Kevin particularly cares for each other, there’s no denying their complicated past. Kevin and James’s sister, Tess, were lovers while James fell hard for Kevin’s sister, Una. Illuminating the precarious balance of family intimacies and how stories can carry over from one generation to the next, O’Keeffe’s The Visitors further delivers on the elegant prose and plotting that earned him critical acclaim and the Story Prize for The Hill Road.