A Slanting of the Sun

Good things happen to bad people, bad things happen to good people, and sometimes, good people do bad things. Ryan's characters observe and endure it all, drawing readers into their foolish decisions, heartbreak, and, too seldom, their joy as they go about the mundanities of life. This title reveals the author experimenting a little more than in his previous works, offering short stories that explore facets of life at a remove from the mainly peaceful, or at least introspective, settings of his award-winning novels The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December. In one story, a protagonist leads a killing mob; in another, the reader will sympathize with a thief. The work even leaves Ryan's rural Ireland, portraying in one tale a priest who finds friendship and then suspicion in Syria. Still, whether the character is a man falling for a woman who's shockingly wrong for him, a boy who's enduring a racist slur for the first time, or a so-called caregiver who abuses disabled people, the stories offer the best of what Ryan's fans have come to love: a piercing look at real life in all its beauty and brutality.