A Fanatic Heart: Selected Stories

by Edna O'Brien, Philip Roth (Foreword by)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374531096
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	02/19/2008
Series:	FSG Classics
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	8.04(w) x 11.04(h) x 1.25(d)

About the Author

Edna O’Brien (1930–2024) was the author of more than twenty-five works of fiction, including The Country Girls, The Little Red Chairs, and The Light of Evening. She received numerous awards, including the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, the Irish PEN Award for Literature, the National Arts Club Medal of Honor, and the Ulysses Medal. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, she lived in London for many years.

Philip Roth (1933-2018) was the award-winning author of Goodbye, Columbus, Portnoy’s Complaint, The Great American Novel, and the books that became known as the Zuckerman Trilogy (The Ghost Writer, Zuckerman Unbound, The Anatomy Lesson), among many others. His honors include two National Book Awards, two National Book Critics Circle Awards, three PEN/Faulkner Awards, the Man Booker International Prize, the National Humanities Medal, and the Pulitzer Prize.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Philip studied literature at Bucknell University, graduating magna cum laude with a B.A., and at the University of Chicago where he received an M.A. From 1955 to 1991, he taught writing and literature classes on the faculties of the University of Chicago, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2005, he was the only third living writer whose books were published by the Library of America. He lived in Manhattan and Connecticut.

Editorial Reviews

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

“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.” —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

From the Publisher