Fanatic Heart

“O’Brien tells the Irish woman’s inside story. She has—as only the finest writers can—created a world; she speaks in a voice identifiably and only hers.” —Mary Gordon, The New York Times Book Review

In these selections from twenty years of her best short fiction, Edna O’Brien’s A Fanatic Heart 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.

“There’s no writer alive who sounds quite like Edna O’Brien. Only a person of abiding compassion could write those lovely words; they echo in almost every page of A Fanatic Heart.” —The Washington Post Book World

“A landmark collection . . . The Irish writer’s exquisite perceptions and empathy with the women of her country exert an emotional pull, compelling the reader to live the straitened circumstances of their lives.” —Publishers Weekly