Colm Toibin is a master of understatement, his work characterised by great emotional intelligence coupled with redoubtable restraint. This is his third anthology of stories, following Mothers and Sons (2006) and The Empty Family (2010). He fills the gaps between words – what he doesn’t say – with as much meaning as the prose.

Familiar themes emerge. There is the Irish diaspora in the US (as in Brooklyn and Long Island); the Catalan Pyrenees (the setting for ‘The Long Winter’ in Mothers and Sons); and Argentina (as in the novel The Story of the Night). Feelings of exile and being an outsider are aroused, while Catholicism still taps on the shoulders of those long lapsed.

In ‘The Journey to Galway’, a woman receives news that her son has been killed fighting for the British in the first world war. On a casual read, it is a study of the mind in the first throes of grief, as the woman searches fruitlessly for actions that might have prevented the bereavement, or mulls uselessly on the contrast between life before and after the shattering news. With some light investigation, it becomes apparent that the narrator is Lady Augusta Gregory of Coole Park, whose nephew, Sir Hugh Lane, established Dublin’s – and possibly the world’s – first public gallery of modern art.

A few of the stories are set in the past like this, but the focus is on the human interest. In ‘Summer of ’38’, a woman is faced with a figure from her earlier life whom she would rather forget. In the title story, a man whose brother is dying from tuberculosis is asked to plead with a politician for access to the first antibiotic active against the bacterium, streptomycin, isolated in 1943.

Relationships of all sorts are explored. In ‘Sleep’, a man can’t cope with the repercussions of repressed grief in his older lover. The latter’s acceptance of the bereavement brings realisation about their compatibility.

Lack of remorse is touched on in two stories. ‘A Free Man’ follows a seminarian who drops out and later serves time, but remains in denial about his vile crimes. ‘A Sum of Money’ raises unspoken questions about whether neglect, hardship and poor role models can drive a boy to theft, or whether he is inherently untrustworthy.

The quiet intensity brings deep satisfaction. As always, Toibin conjures up turbulent microcosms beneath the still, calm surface of the lake of life.