In ["Domestic Relations"] Frank O'Connor proves once again his extraordinary mastery of the short-story form. As always, the settings, the characters, the rhythms of the prose, are unmistakably—and delightfully—Irish. Yet, fundamentally, these are not Irish stories. O'Connor is concerned with those critical moments when the course of life is suddenly, often radically, changed, when nothing is ever quite the same again. In such moments as these it is the human condition that is illuminated.

Of the fifteen stories in the book, roughly half are concerned with childhood and youth, several are comic, and all are written with an acute, but always affectionate awareness of human vanity and weakness. The humor is superb….

Yet even when he is most amusing, O'Connor's eye is always focused on that experience which presently will transform the life of his character. The youth in "Daydreams" is a wonderfully comic figure but...