My novel about love, betrayal and chess in New Orleans: The Pride and the Sorrow

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

John McGahern - novels and interview!

This is John McGahern, a much respected Irish novelist who passed away in 2006. However, his archives are held at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and include the manuscripts of his published and unpublished novels, short stories, letters and so on. Tomorrow I'm pleased to be travelling to Galway for a job interview for the position of Lecturer in Creative Writing and as a kind of archival ambassador for the literary treasures of the late writer.

It's a great opportunity to work closely with the archives of an active Creative Writing program, as well as within the archive and how its carefully listed material can be best represented to the university, scholars and the general public.

John McGahern is probably best remembered for his novel Amongst Women (1990), written relatively late in his career - the story of a widowed IRA man Michael Moran who brings up a large family but through his mix of confused love and fear, eventually loses their love and much needed attention, as they grow up and become wise to his muddled and controlling ways (several of them moving to London). A sad story, but someone beautifully sweet despite the pain of the family shifting under Moran's feet - until the only thing left is his stubbornness and the sinking meadow where he goes for walks as an old man...My favourite John McGahern novel, though, is The Leavetaking (1975), a story set in Ireland and England about a schoolteacher who is forced to resign because he gets married outside the Catholic Church. Amongst other things, the novel is a quiet meditation on love, loss, growing up and struggles to find a place in the world for someone caught between Ireland and England. It also dares to be uplifting, or rather the autobiographical character dares to look forward to a better life less controlled by the Irish State at that time (the 50s), but of course, the sense persists that London is merely a temporary excursion away from the power of rural Ireland and its landscape that will draw him back...

Of course, John McGahern is equally remembered as a skilled writer of the short story, a creative form that bears a rich Irish history from James Joyce to William Trevor. McGahern's own Collected Stories appeared in 1992, and its revised edition Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories (with some stories excised) in 2006.

Finally, there is the Memoir (2006) that John McGahern published close to the end of his life - a kind of spiritual re-examination of his beginnings, his family and in particular, his relationship with his mother and father, the two presences that could not control his inner identity more strongly, and more differently. The father is revealed as the forerunner of many fictional fathers he created, a heroic man from the war with the black-and-tans, but a domestic bully who cannot manipulate his family to make them love him, who somehow escapes both sympathy and tragedy, and yet is an obsessive presence for McGahern and the reader alike - for his towering self-pity.

So what remains is the mother, the memory of the half-relationship cut off so abruptly in childhood but that lasted vividly for McGahern...If she has lived, she would have seen him become a writer of great statue, not the priest of their shared dream (a dream of priesthood that McGahern explodes in both his life and work); and yet, given his ability to grace lives far outside of Leitrim in England, France, Spain and the United States - those other countries that McGahern made his temporary homes - how much prouder she would have been.



Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Faulkner-Wisdom Competition - I am "Almost Finalist"!

I'm pleased to say The Pride and the Sorrow is an "Almost Finalist" in the 2008 Faulkner- Wisdom Competition. The competition is run by the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society, and was judged by former Random House VP, Michael Murphy.

Thanks Faulkner Society!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Welcome to The F Street Review!


Welcome to The F Street Review! This is my first foray into publishing - if a blog counts. I will reviews novels and literary biographies about the same writers. I am interested in the life of the writer, and how it relates to the work published. In making these connections, I aim not so much for a "key-to-the-novel" but assessing in its complexity how the writer's life influenced the work they were able to complete, in terms of inspiration, perspiration and dedication, as well as the pitfalls along the way, both personal and professional.
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That is the aim of this humble reviewing blog! I believe my niche lies in this special relationship between writers and their books. I will aim to deliver information, first and foremost; second, I aim to use some judegement after twenty years reading and writing - and completing a doctorate in British and American twentieth century novels - to decide on what I believe is useful while describing a text as fully as possible. Finally, I aim to ask the questions that always linger - good and bad - after reading the works of writers I greatly admire, but whose novels, characters, ideas, writing methods and lives, I wish to know more about.
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Wish me luck, and I hope you enjoy the reviews!



My novel about painting, criminality, and the greatest art forger of the twentieth century!

My novel about painting, criminality, and the greatest art forger of the twentieth century!
Please click the cover!

My novel about London, murder, mayhem, and a female killer!

My novel about London, murder, mayhem, and a female killer!
Please click the cover!

My novel about running, Princeton University, and a conman who lost it all!

My novel about running, Princeton University, and a conman who lost it all!
Please click the cover!

My novel about running, Princeton University, and a conman who lost it all!

My novel about running, Princeton University, and a conman who lost it all!
Please click the cover!

My novel about love, betrayal and chess in New Orleans

My novel about love, betrayal and chess in New Orleans
Please click the book!

My semi-autobiographical novel about a very British education and becoming an American!

My semi-autobiographical novel about a very British education and becoming an American!
Please click the cover!

My novel about London, murder, mayhem, and a female killer!

My novel about London, murder, mayhem, and a female killer!
Please click the cover!