Kevin Barry is the master of the short story. Some of these stories will stay with me forever, especially the beautifully poignant "Roma Kid". "Thanks be to f*** for Kevin Barry!

I was intrigued by the description of this title, but found that I laboured through most of the stories. Only the one about the Roma girl really gripped me, while I had to force myself to finish reading most of the others.

The idea that “places exerted their own feelings” does seem to be a recurring theme in Kevin Barry’s work, and to the extent that I have long had a fondness for Irish storytellers writing about their narrow, oppressed lives in damp pebbledash cabins under depressing, grey skies, I was delighted to find that the majority of the short stories in That Old Country Music are set in and around Barry’s west coast hometown of Sligo; in the shadow of Ox Mountain, weedy with unlucky whitethorn. For the most part, these stories are melancholic and haunting — exploring loneliness, death, and the yearning for love — and the only thing keeping most of these characters out of the bughouse is their ability to find release in moments of dark humour. This is a truly strong collection of engaging stories and I'd have no hesitancy recommending it to any reader.