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Praise for The Springs of Affection

PRAISE FOR

The Springs of Affection

“Masterly … A cause for rejoicing … The richness of Brennan’s meticulous fiction is truly a treasure rediscovered.”

— Claire Messud, Newsday

“How and why the voice of these Dublin stories was ever allowed to drift out of earshot is one of the literary puzzles. Now The Springs of Affection brings it back, as a favor to us all, and it is as true and as haunting as before.”

— Mavis Gallant

“There is enormous power in Brennan’s recording of her characters’ sensations … There is great beauty and indomitable humanity … She was a magical writer.”

— Michael Pakenham, Baltimore Sun

“I have always counted the title story of this volume among my favorites for all time, but I had forgotten how pure and strong so many of Maeve Brennan’s other stories are. It is a great joy to me to have these all together.”

— Alice Munro

“Superb … Maeve Brennan is a marvelous, idiosyncratic writer whose work should be far better known than it is.”

— Brooke Allen, The New Criterion

“Wonderful vignettes of a bygone Dublin, with a truth and freshness that makes them timeless.”

— Edna O’Brien

“The Springs of Affection should bring Brennan back to the table of modern fiction, where her place has been empty for too long.”

— Jay Parini, New York Times Book Review

Also by Maeve Brennan

Also by

Maeve Brennan

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The Long-Winded Lady

Notes from “The New Yorker”

THE SPRINGS OF AFFECTION

INTRODUCTION

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BY WILLIAM MAXWELL

Because I had been her editor I was asked to write the obituary notice that appears in the November 15, 1993, issue of The New Yorker. It begins: “Maeve Brennan died a few days ago, at the age of seventy-six. She was a small, charming, effortlessly witty, generous woman with green eyes, hugely oversized horn-rimmed glasses, and chestnut hair worn in a vast beehive.”

In 1934 her father, Robert Brennan, was appointed the Republic of Ireland’s first envoy to Washington, and he brought his family with him. Maeve was seventeen. At the end of her father’s term he and the others went back to Dublin, and she stayed on in this country through the rest of her life. I don’t know whether in Ireland she is considered an Irish writer or an American. In fact, she is both, and both countries ought to be proud to claim her.