The twenty-one stories in The Springs of Affection trace the patterns of love within three middle-class Dublin families, patterns as intricate and various as Irish lace. Love between husband and wife, which begins in courtship and in laughter, loses all power of expression and then vanishes forever. The natural over of sister for brother, of mother for son, is twisted into the rage to possess. And love that gives rise to the rituals of family life grows solid as a rock that will never crumble.

In his introduction, William Maxwell, Maeve Brennan's editor at The New Yorker, writes of the special quality of her stories, of being her friend, and of the premature end of her writing life. In Mr. Maxwell's telling, Maeve Brennan's own story proves as moving as any she ever wrote, and ultimately as heartbreaking.