Antarctica is a short story collection by Irish author Claire Keegan. Originally published in 1999 by Faber and Faber, the collection includes 15 short stories set across Ireland and the United States. The collected works depict married women seeking their freedom via sexual exploration, young girls asserting themselves by standing up to their fathers or working the farmland, and men faced with and failing to uphold the weighty expectations of their sex to protect the women in their lives. The short stories are written from various first-person, second-person, and third-person points of view and explore themes including Female Agency Constrained by Domesticity and Gender Roles, Sex as a Form of Self-Exploration, and the Destabilizing Nature of Loss and Grief.

Keegan is a renowned Irish author who is known for her concise writing style and linguistic deftness. The 2024 film adaptation of her novella Small Things Like These has grown her literary following since her authorial emergence in the 1990s. Keegan won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the William Trevor Prize for Antarctica.

This guide refers to the 2024 Grove Press paperback edition of the collection.

Content Warning: The source material and guide contain depictions of sexual content, pregnancy termination, cursing, racism, sexual violence, rape, child abuse, substance use, addiction, emotional abuse, physical abuse, mental illness, gender discrimination, child sexual abuse, child death, death by suicide, and death.

Language Note: The source text uses the n-word, specifically in the story “The Scent of Water.” This racist term that is not reproduced in this guide. 

Plot Summaries

Antarctica is a collection of 15 short stories. The opening titular story, “Antarctica,” features a third-person narrator telling the story of a woman who leaves her husband and children for the weekend, under the guise of Christmas shopping in the city. In reality, the woman plans to spend her days away from home having an affair with a stranger. She wanders into a local bar, where she confronts a man who buys her a drink. The two drink and play pool, returning to the man’s house to eat dinner and have sex several times. In the morning, the woman returns to her hotel to check out and wanders the city, waiting for her train. She runs into the man, who invites her back to his house again where they again have sex. This time the man handcuffs the woman to the bed and force feeds her eggs and coffee. She falls asleep and wakes up, naked, cuffed, and gagged. The man heads out for work, leaving the woman trapped in the cold room. She screams for help to no avail, realizing she may never see her family again.

In “Men and Women,” a young, unnamed, first-person female narrator lives with her parents and brother in a house surrounded by gates. It is the narrator’s job to latch and unlatch the gates for her father whenever they leave or return home. She often accompanies him on outings and errands, during which they end up at the homes of local women who feed her father food and drinks. For New Year’s, the family attends a local dance where the narrator interrupts her father’s dance with a local woman named Sarah who has been showing interest in him. Afterward, her mother tries to claim a raffle prize she didn’t win, and flees the hall. On the ride home, her father gets upset with her mother for ignoring his commentary on the dance and lashes out when she refuses to unlatch the gate at home. He finally jumps out to do the job himself. The narrator’s mother races out down the drive, leaving her father in the snow.

In “Where the Water’s Deepest,” a third-person narrator tells the story of a young au pair. She works for a well-to-do family, caring for their young boy. She spends her days tending to and playing with the boy. At night, she has a recurring nightmare in which she idly watches the boy leap to his death from a great height. One day, the au pair goes to the lakeshore alone and remembers a recent trip she took to New York with the family. She left the balcony door cracked while the parents were out to dinner. Upon their return, the father threatened to fire for endangering the boy. Back in the present, the little boy races toward the water. He falls, but the au pair catches him and returns him to his mother at the house.

In “Love in the Tall Grass,” a third-person narrator tells Cordelia’s story. She lives alone in a house in the country, where she tends an orchard and sells apples. On New Year’s Eve in 1999, she wakes up and prepares herself to meet her former lover, the doctor. They met and had an affair 10 years prior when the doctor started visiting her stand. Cordelia fell in love with him and the doctor grew attached to Cordelia. However, when the doctor’s wife discovered the affair, he broke up with Cordelia, insisting he couldn’t break apart his family and hurt his kids. He promised to reunite with Cordelia 10 years later when the kids were grown. Back in the present, Cordelia arrives at the appointed meeting place, where she runs into the doctor’s wife. She discovered their plans and wanted to meet Cordelia. Then the doctor arrives. The three sit on the beach in silence.

In “Storms,” a young, first-person female narrator is fascinated by her mother’s ability to see the future in her dreams. Then one day, her mother dreams that her own mother has died and receives a telegram with the same news the following morning. Over the month following her grandmother’s death, the narrator witnesses her mother’s mental decline. Finally, her father has her mother admitted to a mental health facility. The narrator now pays her mother weekly visits at the hospital. She guesses she is studying her mother to ward off her own mental illness.

In “Ride If You Dare,” a third-person narrator tells the story of Roslin, a woman who has just realized she is in a loveless marriage. After realizing she has wasted 10 good years of her life with a cold man, she answers an ad in the personals and starts communicating by phone with a man named Guthrie. Then one day, she meets him at a bar, where they eat and drink at their leisure. Then they take a long drive with no destination, impulsively stopping at a carnival where Guthrie urges Roslin to join him on the rides. Roslin finally agrees to go down a giant slide, deciding she will go through with the affair after all.

In “The Singing Cashier,” a young, unnamed, first-person female narrator lives in Gloucester with her older sister Cora. The sisters’ mother died when they were young and Cora has provided for them ever since their father’s more recent passing. The narrator recently dropped out of school and spends her days helping Cora around the house or running errands. One day, the narrator returns early from her errands to find Cora and the postman hurriedly redressing after a sexual encounter. She realizes Cora is sleeping with him in exchange for regular fish deliveries. Not long later, the postman delivers a paper with a headline about a pair of serial killers living next door. Horrified, the sisters realize the murderous couple knew their father. Cora ends her affair and sits at the table, despondent. The narrator makes her an egg to cheer her up.

In “Burns,” a third-person narrator tells the story of a man, his kids, and his second wife, Robin. The family travels to their old summer house in an attempt to confront their shared family history. They clean and redecorate but nothing can eradicate the presence of the man’s ex-wife. Finally, Robin suggests they renovate and the family comes together to redo the kitchen. Afterward, they cook together. Amidst the celebration, a hoard of cockroaches bursts from the cabinets and walls. The family bands together to kill the insects.

In “Quare Name for a Boy,” the unnamed first-person female narrator discovers she is pregnant and returns home to confront the baby’s father, a man she had a one-week love affair with the previous Christmas. Upon arrival, she is met with criticism from her female family members. Then she goes out for drinks with her one-week lover. He doesn’t get upset when she tells him the news, but she decides she won’t ask him for help. She will raise the child alone.

In “Sisters,” a third-person narrator tells the story of the sisters, Betty and Louisa. Their mother died when they were girls. When they grew up, Louisa left the family homestead and ventured off to England to marry a salesman named Stanley, with whom she now has two children. Meanwhile, Betty stayed home to care for the farm and their ailing father. He recently died, leaving the house to Betty with the stipulation that Louisa could stay there whenever she liked. One summer, Louisa and her kids come for the summer, but this time without Stanley. As the weeks pass, Betty becomes increasingly annoyed with Louisa and her family and confounded as to Stanley’s whereabouts. Finally one day, she realizes Louisa left Stanley and expects to move in with her. Protective of her independence, Betty chops off Louisa’s hair. A shocked Louisa screams at Betty, packs her things, and takes the children home.

In “The Scent of Winter,” a third-person narrator tells the story of a lawyer named Hanson and his relationship with his neighborhood friend, Greer. Hanson has become especially invested in Greer ever since he confided in him about recent events at his house: A man broke in and raped his wife. For revenge, Greer locked the man in his barn. One day, Hanson takes his kids and their nanny over to see Greer. The kids play while the men talk. Greer updates Hanson on the situation. Hanson feels uncomfortable but doesn’t know how to dismiss himself. Finally the men race outside when they hear shouting. The kids and nanny found and released the man in the barn. The nanny quits and runs away after the man.

In “The Burning Palms,” a third-person narrator tells the story of a young boy who lives with his mother, Mammy, and his father. The boy prefers to spend time with his grandmother, Gran, because his father has a gambling and alcohol addiction. One day, Mammy urges him to hurry up so they can leave Gran’s and return home, but the boy stalls, afraid of facing his father. Gran lets him stay and they play a game of cards. Suddenly, a lorry crashes through the front of the house, hitting and killing Mammy. In the weeks following Mammy’s death, the boy keeps spending time with Gran. Then one day, she burns down the house and the two leave.

In “Passport Soup,” a third-person narrator tells the story of Frank Corso in the wake of his daughter Elizabeth Corso’s disappearance. Frank cannot make sense of the tragedy, as he was the one watching Elizabeth in the back field when she went missing. Then one night, he returns home to find his wife cooking dinner in an elaborate outfit. Frank is hopeful she has forgiven him until he sees chopped up pictures of Elizabeth in the soup. The wife screams at Frank, blaming him for losing Elizabeth. Frank feels better, knowing she is right.

In “Close to the Water’s Edge,” a third-person narrator tells the story of a young man who attends Harvard University. In the summer, he leaves Cambridge to spend time with his mother and her millionaire husband, Richard, at their beachside condo. While there, the young man discovers that his mother only married Richard in hopes that he would someday inherit Richard’s money. He goes to the beach alone. Swimming naked, he thinks about his grandmother’s decision to stay in a loveless marriage.

In “You Can’t Be Too Careful,” the first-person narrator Jay tells the story of his encounter with a murderer named Butch. Butch was a local street musician who one night invited Jay out on a fishing trip. Jay agreed, and the two took Jay’s boat out on the river in the middle of the night. Shortly after dawn, Butch told Jay that after suspecting his wife of infidelity, he killed her. Jay notices the blood on his shirt. Some hours later, Butch rows Jay back to shore, makes him don his bloody shirt, and ties him in the marsh, stealing his car keys and heading back out in his boat. In retrospect, Jay thinks Butch is a brilliant man. He successfully evaded police detection and framed him for his crime.

In “The Ginger Rogers Sermon,” a young, first-person female narrates her years becoming a young woman. She lives on a farm with her parents, Ma and Da, and her brother. Although her brother loves reading and her parents love dancing, the narrator prefers to spend her time outside doing farm chores. She forms a bond with the hired man, Slapper Jim. She details her growing into a woman: her first period, turning 13, and going out dancing at the pub. Then one snowy night, Ma invites Slapper to spend the night at the farm so he won’t have to brave the storm. The narrator climbs into bed with him, and they have sex. Not long later, the narrator is out on her horse when she encounters Slapper’s body hanging from a tree. Her parents insist it was death by suicide; Eugene casts her many accusatory glances. The night after his funeral services, the family dances and drinks together, as Ma and Da insist on teaching Eugene how to dance properly.