So Late In The Day: Claire Keegan’s Tiny Portrait of Toxic Masculinity

When looking at a book as diminutive as So Late In The Day’s 47 pages by Claire Keegan, it can be tempting to assume the story is lightweight, simplistic, or even a little fluffy. But time and again, through her books, Keegan proves that this is not so. She proves great things truly do come in small packages.

So Late In The Day takes place over one afternoon, with the actions and inner monologue of our protagonist, Cathal, revealing the true significance of this seemingly ordinary day. The masterful way this is revealed to the reader adds a strange tension to an otherwise rather quiet, domestic character study. Claire Keegan particularly illustrates the bizarre way the world ignores a tragedy for the sake of avoiding awkwardness. “So much of life carrying smoothly on, despite the tangle of human upsets and the knowledge of how everything must end.” 

Claire Keegan: So Late In The Day

Keegan’s placid, gentle prose is clearly concealing inner turmoil. The still waters of both Cathal and the story itself run deep. Through his almost disturbing inner monologue, the inherent and dangerous misogyny of Cathal becomes gradually clear to us. “He wanted to deny it, but it felt uncomfortably close to a truth he had not once considered.”

The breakdown of his relationship with Sabine depicts the most horrific and vile attitudes men can have towards their romantic partners, said aloud for all to hear. “She looked different without her makeup, going around in a tracksuit, sweating and lifting things. I just didn’t think it would be like this is all … Maybe it’s just too much reality.”

But the fact we’re inside Cathal’s mind prevents us from viewing him as a straightforward villain. He’s awful, but he seems to know it – and at least has some interest in examining why. He looks at his upbringing and a particularly difficult-to-read incident of a ‘prank’ his father played on his mother. “Cathal now wondered how he might have turned out if his father had been another type of man and had not laughed.” But Cathal is also dishonest and lies to himself. He meets a kindly but talkative mammy on the bus, and is initially repelled by her, before obviously and falsely being ‘nice,’ in a forced and self-congratulatory way. 

So Late In The Day is something of a domestic thriller – filled with tension but without drama. What happens in the story would be insignificant if we didn’t have insight into Cathal’s mind. While what we read about his breakup is pretty horrible, what we are essentially presented with is a depressingly unremarkable breakdown of a relationship. “That was the problem with women falling out of love; the veil of romance fell away from their eyes, and they looked in and could read you”. This happens to men and women every day; somehow, that’s even more tragic.