IN the first of these articles, I observed that the novelist Graham Swift ‘rarely draws on personal experiences for subject matter’ and that ‘each book takes a fresh subject.’ The Irish writer John McGahern (1934-2006) could not be more different.

I have recently been re-reading his books and afterwards turned to his Memoir, his last published work, and a compelling autobiography. So many of the incidents he recalls from his childhood, adolescence and early teaching career in rural Ireland found their way into his novels.

My favourite is The Leavetaking in which the protagonist is forced to leave teaching because he marries a divorced, non-Catholic woman. In recounting this we learn of an earlier leavetaking, the death of his mother when he was a young boy. Both events draw heavily on McGahern’s own experiences.

His second book, The Dark, opens with a father raging at his young son and about to beat him. For sheer terror, seen through the eyes of a child, it bears comparison with such scenes in David Copperfield and Jane Eyre.

Amongst Women is often considered his best work. It is a novel full of tensions, the story of a domineering father and his fluctuating relationships with his five children.

McGahern has a compact writing style: these novels are all under 200 pages in length. His main themes are repression, submission and rebellion. In his stories we see the hold Catholic Ireland had on his native land during the middle of the last century; and this is mirrored in how the fathers in the novels try to impose their will on their families. There is always tension between the children’s strongly felt family bonds and loyalties, and a desire to escape from their narrow and volatile lives at home.

He has a sharp eye for detail and a keen ear for dialogue. His writing style is clear and concise, and his stories are told with empathy and humour.

I can think of no writer who more powerfully describes the enclosed, unsettling world of such small communities as those his novels are set amongst. John McGahern’s first book, The Barracks would be a good novel to start with, and if you do read it, I feel sure you will want to explore some of his others.

Ireland has produced so many great writers in the last hundred years or so. Four of them, W.B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Becket and Seamus Heaney have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, though none of these were novelists. While James Joyce’s literary standing is probably higher than any of those four.

In addition to John McGahern, there are a number of other Irish novelists whose work I enjoy and admire. In particular Colm Toibin, Anne Enright, William Trevor and Bernard MacLaverty and I might return to Irish writers in a future article.

Readers are invited to recommend their favourite book by an Irish writer and say briefly why they choose it.

Lance Christopher

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