A Fanatic Heart

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.