Displaying an uncanny ear for the way we speak, and for what we often fail to say, Folan's fiction probes the darker undercurrents within relationships and family life. Stories set in Dublin, the Midlands, Italy and Spain, are of late-night revelations, infidelities, and smoke-and-shadow games in which his characters often see things in a different light, in situations sometimes familiar today; estranged lovers, a child discovering his parents are quixotic (as well as criminals), husbands and wives sidestepping conflict and a middle-aged man finally discovering his friends are dope smokers or liars, or both. Winner of the RTE Francis MacManus Short Story Award, Folan's stories have been widely published in Ireland and England.