Tag Archives: John McGahern

The Barracks by John McGahern

First published in 1963, The Barracks was John McGahern’s debut novel, written when he was in his late twenties. Now considered one of Ireland’s greatest authors, McGahern wrote about a world he knew very well, with The Barracks drawing on various experiences from his own childhood – particularly the early death of his mother, Susan, from cancer in 1944 and the years he spent living in the Cootehall Garda Barracks where his father, Frank, a Police sergeant, lived and worked. It’s a sad, beautifully observed novel that delves deep into character, which on paper ought to have been literary catnip for me; but in this instance, something stopped me from loving it as much as McGahern’s masterpiece, Amongst Women. Then again, maybe my expectations were unfairly high.

The Barracks revolves around Elizabeth, a housewife in her early forties who lives with her husband, Reegan, a sergeant in the Garda, and his three young children from a previous marriage. Once a nurse with a busy, independent life in London during the turmoil and uncertainty of the Blitz, Elizabeth has now settled for a quieter existence, one dictated by various domestic routines at the Garda barracks in rural Ireland where Reegan is based. Her family hadn’t wanted her to marry Reegan, a man they considered somewhat diffident and prone to flashes of temper, but Elizabeth was ready for a life of her own choosing, away from London and the painful memories it evoked.

She married Reegan. She was determined to grasp at a life of her own desiring, no longer content to drag through with her repetitive days, neither happy nor unhappy, merely passing them in the wearying spirit of service; and the more the calls of duty tried to tie her down to this life the more intolerably burdensome it became. (pp. 15–16)

The marriage is one of companionship, security and mutual dependency rather than love or desire. Nevertheless, Elizabeth seems resigned to this arrangement, finding solace in her contributions to the smooth running of the household and her familiar domestic routines.

…had she married Reegan because she had been simply sick of living at the time and forced to create some illusion of happiness about him so that she might be able to go on? She’d no child of her own now. She’d achieved no intimacy with Reegan. He was growing more and more restless. He, too, was sick, sick of authority and the police, sick of obeying orders, threatening to break up this life of theirs in the barracks, but did it matter so much now? Did it matter where they went, whether one thing happened more than another? It seemed to matter less and less. An hour ago she’d been on the brink of collapse and if she finally collapsed did anything matter? (pp. 49–50)

Early in the novel, it becomes clear that Elizabeth is likely living with undiagnosed breast cancer. She has found lumps in her breast but has done nothing to seek assistance from the doctor despite her earlier training as a nurse. Instead, she tries to focus on the myriad of small daily tasks that must be carried out to keep the household ticking along. Any spare time would only be filled by worries about her condition, and the thought of spiralling downwards is too frightening to bear.

This’d be the only time of the day she might get some grip and vision on the desperate activity of her life. She was Elizabeth Reegan: a woman in her forties: sitting in a chair with a book from the council library in her hand that she hadn’t opened: watching certain things like the sewing-machine and the vase of daffodils and a circle still white with frost under the shade of the sycamore tree between the house and the river: alive in this barrack kitchen, with Casey down in the dayroom: with a little time to herself before she’d have to get another meal ready: with a life on her hands that was losing the last vestiges of its purpose and meaning: with hard cysts within her breast she feared were cancer… (p. 49)

With her strength failing with every passing day, Elizabeth knows the time has come to face up to her condition by seeing the unit’s doctor – a task she has been delaying for fear of the probable diagnosis. (We are in 1950s Ireland here, a time when cancer was rarely discussed publicly – and possibly not even privately, depending on the patient’s character. There’s also a suggestion here that Elizabeth might not even be told that she has cancer, that maybe this fact will be withheld from her or shared only with Reegan, such was the conservative nature of Irish society back then.)

She knew she must see a doctor, but she’d known that months before, and she had done nothing. (…)

What the doctor would do was simple. He’d send her for a biopsy. She might be told the truth or she might not when they got the result back, depending on them and on herself. If she had cancer she’d be sent for treatment. She had been a nurse. She had no illusions about what would happen. (p. 34)

Essentially, the novel follows the Reegan family as they pussyfoot around this crisis. Elizabeth knows she is dying, a realisation that inevitably prompts reflection and the raking over of past regrets, of lives that might have been lived but were never realised.

What was her life? Was she ready to cry halt and leave? Had it achieved anything or been given any meaning? She was no more ready to die now than she had been twenty years ago. (p. 85)

Central to the novel is the question of whether Elizabeth has lived a meaningful and fulfilling life. In some respects, she has been dying inside long before the breast cancer started to destroy her physical strength and resilience. Her life at the barracks is mundane and narrow, a world away from the excitement she once experienced in London with her former lover, Michael Halliday, the dashing doctor she met through her work at the hospital. Despite being somewhat fickle, Michael broadened Elizabeth’s cultural horizons by giving her books and taking her to plays at the theatre. How might her life have turned out had their relationship been more stable? Would it have been more pleasurable, more fulfilling than the one she has experienced with Reegan? Sadly though, for various reasons that McGahern duly reveals, this affair with Michael was torrid and painfully short-lived.

He [Halliday] had changed everything in her life and solved nothing: the first rush of the excitement of discovery, and then the failure of love, contempt changing to self-contempt and final destruction, its futile ashes left in her own hands. (p. 209)

Meanwhile, Reegan is embroiled in his own longstanding battle at work, which McGahern depicts with a strong sense of authenticity. A former leader in the Irish War of Independence, Reegan is frustrated by the futile regulations he must conform to as a Garda sergeant, and an ongoing feud with Superintendent Quirke leaves him feeling bitter and resentful. In truth, Reegan would like nothing more than to tell Quirke where he can stick his routine patrols and duty logs as he dreams of saving enough money to buy a local farm. A side hustle of selling turf from the nearby bog consumes much of his spare time, but one wonders whether it’s a convenient excuse to break free from the constraints of the barracks.

Where this quietly devastating novel really excels though is in its portrayal of Elizabeth’s inner world as she struggles with her illness. While the book is written in the third person, McGahern holds us close to Elizabeth’s viewpoint – a noteworthy achievement for a male writer in his late twenties, especially with a debut novel of this nature. This is a world in which emotions are kept under wraps, where no one seems able to openly acknowledge that Elizabeth is terminally ill. McGahern also pays great attention to the daily rhythms and rituals of life in this close community: the importance of church and family, the devotion to prayer; the small gestures of friends and neighbours when Elizabeth’s illness becomes known; everything here is so well observed.

They came before Elizabeth had her packing finished, all the policemen’s wives, Mrs. Casey and Mrs Brennan and Mrs Mullins. They were excited, the intolerable vacuum of their own lives filled with speculation about the drama they already saw circling about this new wound. (p. 106)

Alongside the characterisation, there is some lovely descriptive writing here, capturing the small moments of beauty in Elizabeth’s world.

The whiteness was burning rapidly off the fields outside, brilliant and glittering on the short grass as it vanished; and the daffodils that yesterday she had arranged in the white vase on the sill were a wonder of yellowness in the sunshine, the heads massed together above the cold green stems disappearing into the mouth of the vase. (pp. 48–49)

Even though I didn’t find The Barracks quite as engaging or enjoyable as Amongst Women, it’s still a very accomplished novel. McGahern’s insights into coming to terms with death are especially perceptive, as are his portrayals of small-town life in rural Ireland at this time, replete with the burden these characters seem destined to bear. Recommended, especially for fans of William Trevor, Claire Keegan and Colm Tóibín. (I read this book for Cathy’s Reading Ireland event, which runs throughout March.)

My Books of the Year, 2025 – Part 2

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As in previous years, I’ve spread my Books of the Year across two posts. Part 1, published on Tuesday, highlighted my favourites from the first half of the reading year (roughly speaking), while Part 2 features the standout reads from the second half of 2025. Apologies, but I couldn’t bear to leave any of them out, even though it means a total of twenty-six books for the year as a whole.

So, to cut to the chase, here are my favourite reads from mid-2025 onwards, most of which were first published in the 20^th century. Alongside the titles featured in Part 1, these are the books I loved, the books that have stayed with me, the books I’m most likely to recommend to other readers. I’ve summarised each book in this post, but in each instance, you can find my full review by clicking on the relevant title.

(Not pictured: A Land in Winter, read on audio)

Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido (1982)

Brother… is a coming-of-age novel, and a superb one at that, partly due to Trapido’s prose, which is sharp, lively and flecked with dry wit. Our narrator is Katherine Browne, a bright, impressionable young woman, ready to break away from her prim, suburban upbringing in North London at the age of eighteen. Happily, I found her voice utterly engaging from the start. The novel follows Katherine as she moves to London, where she is taken under the wings of her ebullient philosophy professor and his bohemian family. Love, heartache and a spell in Italy duly follow, with more heartbreak hovering on the horizon.

In summary, it’s a captivating and insightful novel about first love, heartache, disillusionment and growing up – as moving and unsentimental as it is funny and charming. Trapido also touches on motherhood, grief and depression in the narrative, weaving together wry humour and genuine poignancy to excellent effect.

Amongst Women by John McGahern (1990)

Ostensibly the story of Moran, an ageing, tyrannical father, whose wife and daughters both love and fear him, this novel can also be seen as a reflection of the deeply conservative nature of Irish society during much of the 20th century, a world dominated by stifling patriarchal power structures in which women were kept firmly in their place. Beautifully constructed in simple, unadorned prose, McGahern has written a superb character study here – a minor masterpiece with an immersive sense of place. I adored this subtle novel, which feels so well suited to fans of William Trevor, Colm Tóibín, Claire Keegan and Dierdre Madden, all of whom have an innate ability to see into the hearts and minds of their characters with insight and precision, laying bare their deepest preoccupations and insecurities for the reader to see.

Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor (1947)

First published in 1946, Palladian is something of an outlier in Elizabeth Taylor’s oeuvre. On one level, it is the story of a recently orphaned eighteen-year-old girl, Cassandra Dashwood, whose headmistress finds her a position as a governess following the death of her father. Young, naive and something of a romantic, Cassandra quickly determines to fall in love with her new employer, Marion Vanbrugh, a rather closeted, effeminate widower who, in the wake of WW2, seems disconnected from the harsh realities of British life. So far, so Jane Eyre, albeit a 20th-century version.

However, beyond this initial set-up, darker preoccupations emerge. Decay, disintegration and self-destruction seem to be Taylor’s major themes here, from the crumbling façade, interiors and statues that characterise Copthorne Manor, the Vanbrugh’s jaded estate, to the self-loathing, bitterness and angst exhibited by various family members and their acquaintances. As ever with Taylor, the characterisation is sharp and insightful – from the main protagonists to the supporting players, everyone is brilliantly sketched. Interestingly, this book has really grown in my mind since I re-read it earlier this year. A surprisingly enduring novel, which demonstrates that even a ‘lesser’ Taylor is streets ahead of many other writers’ best.

A Woman by Sibilla Aleramo, 1906 (tr. Erica Segre and Simon Carnell)

What a phenomenal book this is, an autobiographical feminist novel first published in Italian in 1906, under a pseudonym due to its radical content! Touching on similar themes to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s seminal text The Yellow Wallpaper and Alba de Cespedes’ startling confessional novel Forbidden Notebook, in which a woman explores the right to her own existence in light of the demands of marriage and motherhood, Aleramo’s A Woman reads like a howl from the past, a cry of anguish for liberty, independence and intellectual fulfilment in an oppressive world.

In passionate, emotive prose, Aleramo lays bare the horrific realities of life for a young Italian woman trapped in a brutal, patriarchal society, in which a married woman is considered her husband’s property to do with as he pleases. I found it a vital, propulsive read, an early example of feminist autofiction that deserves to be widely read. Annie Ernaux fans should be rushing to pick this up!

Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang, 1943-7 (tr. Karen S. Kingsbury, 2007 & Eileen Chang, 1996)

In this insightful, exquisitely written collection of four novellas and two short stories, Chang exposes the traditional social mores at play in 1940s Shanghai and Hong Kong, complete with all the cruelties, restrictions and hypocrisies these unwritten rules dictate. Born into an aristocratic family in Shanghai in 1920, Chang was raised by her deeply traditional father, an opium addict, and her more progressive mother, a woman of ‘sophisticated…and cosmopolitan tastes’, partly developed during time spent as a student in the UK. Her family background and formative experiences enabled Chang to straddle different cultures and see the world from different angles.

In her precision, attention to detail and scalpel-like dissection of the complexities of human behaviour and social mores, Chang reminds me of Edith Wharton, another female writer whose characters often find themselves trapped between two worlds: one driven by personal needs and desires, another by societal conventions and moral codes. There are other similarities too, not least an interest in their characters’ inner lives, often closed to outside observers, but vividly alive inside. Both writers are also adept at combining psychological acuity with a strong sense of cultural place, all cloaked in precise, elegant prose. Highly recommended for fans of this style.

A Note in Music by Rosamond Lehmann (1930)

An exquisitely observed exploration of two loveless, unfulfilling marriages and the shifts in dynamics that occur when two captivating visitors enter their stagnant world. Set in an unnamed provincial town during the interwar years, A Note… features two couples, Grace and Tom Fairfax and their friends, Norah and Gerald MacKay, all of whom are discontented in their different ways. Into this troubled world comes Hugh Miller, a bright, sensitive, passionate young man who charms everyone he meets, and his sophisticated, liberated sister, Clare.

Something that Lehmann does particularly well here is to illustrate how inner lives can be altered in subtle but highly significant ways, even when outwardly everything remains broadly the same. By the end of the year, Hugh and Clare will have departed, leaving the Fairfaxes and MacKays to carry on with their lives largely as before. Nevertheless, internally, the tectonic plates have shifted, opening up new levels of understanding and appreciation between Grace & Tom – and between Norah & Gerald. Early middle age is a tricky period for many of us, a time when the optimism, rapture and ambitions of youth may have given way to routine, resignation and a lack of fulfilment. Lehmann writes beautifully about these challenges, showing us how new understandings can be reached in the present, even if the past can never be recaptured.

A Private View by Anita Brookner (1994)

This superb novel is somewhat different from Brookner’s trademark stories of unmarried women living quiet, unfulfilled lives while waiting for their unattainable lovers to make fleeting appearances before disappearing into the night. In this instance, Brookner turns her gaze towards the aptly named George Bland, a quiet, respectable, recently retired man in his mid-sixties living a dull, highly ordered existence in a comfortable London flat. In many respects, he is the male equivalent of Brookner’s archetypal spinsters – a man adrift, living a narrow life on the periphery, while all the excitement and passion seems to be taking place elsewhere.

As the novel unfolds, Brookner explores what can happen when such a life is disrupted, raising the tantalising possibility that it might veer off course. With Brookner’s A Private View, the catalyst for the potential derailment is the arrival of an alluring, infuriating young woman, who takes up residence in the flat opposite George’s. Every time I read another Brooker, I find a new favourite, and this was no exception to the trend!

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (2024)

A moving, elegantly crafted novel that goes deep into character, Miller’s latest takes place in the winter of 1962-63, one of the coldest British winters on record, when temperatures plummeted, blizzards swept in and rivers began to freeze over. It’s an atmospheric backdrop for this story of two marriages, in which the author gives us access to the inner world of each of his main characters – their hopes and dreams, their preoccupations and fears.

As this slow-burning novel unfolds, Miller excels at reflecting the bleak, desolate landscapes of the brittle West Country winter in the emotional isolation felt by his four protagonists – a troubled, hard-to penetrate GP and his lonely, pregnant wife, plus an ambitious, educated farmer and his flighty partner, a former dancer in a Bristol nightclub. Each figure is preoccupied and adrift in their own individual way, raising the possibility that either of these marriages could easily fracture, should the hand of fate twist one way instead of the other. It’s a beautifully written book, very much in tune with the 20th-century writers I love.

The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns (1985)

Regular readers of this blog are probably aware of my fondness for Barbara Comyns – a startlingly original writer with a very distinctive style. Her novels have a strange, slightly off-kilter feel, frequently blending surreal imagery and touches of dark, deadpan humour with the harsh realities of life. This wry sense of the absurd is one of Comyns’ trademarks, cleverly tempering the darkness with a captivating lightness of touch. There’s often a sadness in her narratives too, a sense of poignancy or melancholy that runs through the text. First published in 1985, The Juniper Tree is very much in this vein.

In short, it’s a clever, dreamlike reimagining of the Grimms’ fairy tale of the same name – in fact, the novella’s epigraph is a rhyme taken directly from that classic story. Ostensibly set in London in the late 20th century, Comyns’ spin on The Juniper Tree reads like a timeless dark fable, weaving together the innocence and savagery that characterise many of this author’s best books. While much of what happens here is rooted in reality, Comyns invests her narrative with a surreal, otherworldly quality, tilting the familiar into something slightly off-kilter. Right from the very start, the reader is unsettled, sensing perhaps the tragedy to come…

Crooked Cross by Sally Carson (1934)

For a novel first published in 1934, Sally Carson’s Crooked Cross feels remarkably timely, charting, as it does, the rise of Nazism in the early 1930s, the falling apart of a country’s fundamental codes of decency and the moral fortitude required to stand against persecution. Recently republished by Persephone Books, the book makes chilling reading in 2025, a time when far-right extremism, hate speech and inhumane discrimination against various groups continue to increase.

Carson was a frequent visitor to Bavaria in the early 1930s, and her insights into what was happening there fed into Crooked Cross. In some respects, she was writing in real time, sounding a warning alarm on the pernicious rise of fascism and its grip on the nation. By scrutinising the broader political developments spreading across Germany through the lens of the Klugers, an ordinary middle-class family living in the fictional town of Kranach, close to the Austrian border, Carson illustrated the allure of the fascist movement, particularly for disaffected young men. Lacking the structure and focus of regular work, these men saw the Nazi Party as providing many of the things that had been lacking in their lives, from stability, status, power and responsibility to purpose, direction and a reason to exist. Moreover, the movement gave young Germans a convenient scapegoat – i.e. the Jews – to blame for everything that had been denied them in the lean post-WW1 years. A brilliant, terrifying, immersive novel that deserves to be widely read – it’s also an excellent combination of the personal and political, just the type of book I love.

Lady L. by Romain Gary (1958)

Published in English in 1958 and subsequently translated into French by the author himself, Lady L. was my first experience of Romain Gary’s fiction, but hopefully not my last. What a delightful novella this turned out to be – an elegant story of love, long-held secrets and railing against the conventional establishment, in which the pull of personal desires is pitted against political principles and beliefs! It reads like a work of 19th-century French fiction, which fans of du Maupassant, Flaubert and Louise de Vilmorin’s Madame de__ will likely enjoy.

In short, this charming picaresque tale takes the reader from the slum districts of Paris to the upper echelons of French society, with a story involving spectacular robberies, betrayal, capture, escape, reunion and unexpected marriages, all topped off by a surprising denouement. I’m delighted to see this back in print, courtesy of the Penguin Archive series.

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington (1974 or ‘76)

Born in Lancashire in 1917, Leonora Carrington is perhaps now best known as a surrealist artist; however, during her career, she also wrote novels, short stories, a play and a memoir, all infused with her dreamlike, idiosyncratic worldview. First published in English in the mid-1970s but reputedly completed in 1950, The Hearing Trumpet is as unconventional as one might expect from this visionary creative – a surreal, subversive, wildly imaginative novella that challenges traditional patriarchal and ageist societal structures, turning them neatly on their heads in thrilling fashion. It is, by turns, hilarious, surprising, esoteric and poignant – a wonderful sui generis work that defies categorisation.

The novella is narrated by Marian Leatherby, a ninety-two-year-old woman who lives in Mexico with her family, who, in turn, consider her somewhat burdensome and eccentric. Before long, Marian is packed off to a care home, which turns out to be more sinister than it appears at first sight. Much is made of the seemingly ‘eccentric’ nature of elderly women here, a label often attached to marginalised individuals to explain away their unconventional qualities. Carrington, however, was well aware of the revolutionary potential of women who looked at the world differently, and as the novella unfolds, eccentricity is portrayed in a positive, liberating light as a rebellious force for good.

The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett (1896)

First published in 1896 and recently reissued as part of the Penguin Archive series, The Country of the Pointed Firs is a classic example of literary regionalism, a genre of writing in which the local setting, landscape, history, community and customs are centre stage. Through a series of evocative vignettes, Jewett conveys a rich picture of everyday life in the fictional small-town community of Dunnet Landing on the east coast of Maine. It’s a gem of a book – reflective, affecting and beautifully crafted.

Central to the story is Jewett’s narrator, an unnamed female writer (possibly Jewett herself) who has come to Dunnet Landing for the summer to work on her writing. Through her landlady, Mrs Todd, who has lived in the area since her birth, the narrator is drawn into the lives of the local inhabitants – their stories and histories, preoccupations, and concerns. Something Jewett does particularly well here is to capture the traditional rhythms and rituals of life in this coastal community, the importance of female friendships and shared stories, resilience and independence, occasional family gatherings and reunions, nature and landscape. In short, it’s a gorgeous paean to ordinary lives well lived, where small acts of kindness and generosity brighten the spirits, easing some of the difficulties humanity must face.

So that’s it for my Books of the Year, 2025! Do let me know your thoughts on my choices – I’d love to hear your views.

Thanks so much to everyone who has read, commented or engaged with my thoughts on books over the past year. I really do appreciate it.

All that remains is to wish you all the very best for the festive season and the year ahead. Here’s to another great year of reading and more book chat in 2026!

Amongst Women by John McGahern

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Amongst Women, the fifth novel by the critically acclaimed Irish writer John McGahern, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1990, missing out to A. S. Byatt’s Possession in the final cut. Ostensibly the story of an ageing, tyrannical father, whose wife and daughters both love and fear him, the novel can be seen as a reflection of the deeply conservative nature of Irish society during much of the 20^th century, a world dominated by stifling patriarchal power structures in which women were kept firmly in their place. Beautifully constructed in simple, unadorned prose, this is a superb character study – a minor masterpiece with an immersive sense of place.

Central to McGahern’s moving, acutely observed novel is Moran, a middle-aged widower in rural Ireland, who spends his days working the farm and tending the animals, falling in step with nature’s cyclical rhythms. As a young man, Moran commanded an IRA column in the Irish War of Independence, garnering the respect of those who served under him. A subsequent falling out with those in charge led to his departure from the army, and while money remained tight, he refused to take a military pension due to stubbornness and resentment. Consequently, Moran is now rather isolated from the surrounding community, shunning any interference from outside or sentimental reminiscences of the past.

He had never been able to deal with the outside. All his dealings had been with himself and that larger self of family which had been thrown together by marriage or accident: he had never been able to go out from his shell of self. (p. 12)

This is a world in which family and religion are everything, the bedrock of civilisation and respectable Irish society. (We are in the 1950s/‘60s here, a time when Ireland was deeply conservative, wedded to traditional values and draconian views on discipline.) Consequently, Moran rules his conservative, deeply religious household with an iron fist.

Following a brief opening section, which comes full circle by the novel’s end, we are quickly introduced to Moran’s family – his three daughters, Maggie, Mona and Sheila, and their younger brother, Michael – all living at home on the Great Meadow farm. There is another son too, the headstrong but hardworking Luke, who now lives in London following a falling out with his father. Despite his success in London, carving out a burgeoning career for himself in a thriving property development business, the estranged Luke is a lost cause as far as Moran is concerned, and his name is rarely mentioned in the house.

As McGahern lays out his stall, we quickly sense the mood at Great Meadow, which Moran’s high moral standards and fiery temper invariably dictate.

Though Maggie was eighteen, tall and attractive, she was still as much in awe of Moron as when she had been a child. Mona, two years younger, was the more likely to clash with him, but this day she agreed to be ruled by Maggie’s acquiescence. Sheila, a year younger still, was too self-centred and bright ever to challenge authority on poor ground and she pretended to be sick in order to escape the tension of the day. Alone, the two girls were playful as they went about their tasks, mischievous at times, even carefully boisterous; but as soon as their father came in they would sink into a beseeching drabness, cower as close to being invisible as they could. (p. 8)

The story follows the family members as they age and develop, perhaps most notably with the arrival of Rose, who becomes Moran’s second wife. McGahern devotes significant time to the couple’s courtship, which is beautifully observed, Rose knowing full well that she will have to do virtually all the running to secure Moran’s hand in marriage. In truth, Rose is the saving grace of the household, tempering her husband’s potential for flare-ups on several occasions. Luckily the children are extremely fond of this new arrival, welcoming her into their home and appreciating her compassion as a counterbalance to Moran’s bitterness.

Rose and the girls smiled as the tea and the plates circled around him. They were already conspirators. They were mastered and yet they were controlling together what they were mastered by. (p. 46)

Nevertheless, Rose too comes in for criticism from this exacting patriarch, occasionally grating on his nerves with her lively chatter. For the most part, she absorbs her husband’s violent outbursts and truculent moods, making excuses for his temper; but inevitably, there are occasions when Moran goes too far, causing Rose to withdraw to her room, visibly hurt.

Often when talking with the girls she [Rose] had noticed that whenever Moran entered the room silence and deadness would fall on them […] If they had to stay they moved about the place like shadows. Only when they dropped or rattled something, the startled way they would look towards Moran, did the nervous tension of what it took to glide about so silently show. Rose had noticed this and she had put it down to the awe and respect in which the man she so loved was held, and she was loath to see differently now. She had chosen Moran, had married him against convention and her family. All her vanity was in question. The violence Moran had turned on her she chose to ignore; to let her own resentment drop and to join the girls as they stole about so that their presence would never challenge his. (p. 53)

At heart, Moran is strictly old-school, a proud man who rarely shows his emotions; any demonstrations of pleasure, pride or effusive praise are considered weaknesses or too vulgar, partly because they would likely invite jealousy or dismissal from other members of the community. For instance, when Sheila is offered a scholarship to study medicine at university, Moran fails to make a fuss, deliberately withholding his approval of the opportunity. Consequently, his tacit disapproval prompts Sheila to accept a steady civil service position instead, something Moran considers more suited to his youngest daughter’s level despite her academic brilliance at school. Naturally, Sheila resents her father’s lack of support here, especially at first, but she soon accepts his judgement as being for the best. As a modern-day reader, it is infuriating to see Moran smothering his daughter’s ambitions in this way. Nevertheless, this is an accurate representation of Irish society at the time; I know this from my own family’s experiences and those of their contemporaries.

Despite his many failings, Moran is loved and revered by all his daughters, who remain both terrified of him and desperately eager for his approval and respect. It is to McGahern’s great credit that he portrays this aspect of the Moran family dynamics in such a nuanced and authentic way.

Young Michael, on the other hand, is more rebellious, leaving school early and falling in with a twenty-two-year-old Irish girl, Nell, back from the US with money to burn. Michael’s transgressions are eventually uncovered, prompting a violent confrontation between Moran and his youngest son. Consequently, Michael flees the nest in terror, highlighting Moran’s reluctance to forgive and forget.

One by one, the children move away from Great Meadow — Maggie to London where she trains as a nurse; Mona and Sheila to civil service jobs in Dublin; and Michael to London where he falls for an older English woman — leaving Moran and Rose to take care of the farm. Nevertheless, the core family unit continues to exert a strong pull on the children, especially the girls, with Mona and Sheila returning home to the farm every other weekend and Maggie visiting twice a year, especially around harvest time.

These visits of his daughters from London and Dublin were to flow like relief through the house. They brought distraction, something to look forward to, something to mull over after they had gone. Above all they brought the bracing breath of the outside, an outside Moran refused to accept unless it came from the family. Without it there would have been an ingrown wilting. (p. 93)

Even Michael is willing to go back and make his peace with Moran despite the previous trouble.

As in any family, various developments and dramas ensue. There are courtships and marriages, the arrival of grandchildren and regular trips home to visit Great Meadow. Nevertheless, McGahern’s primary concerns are character, family dynamics and an immersive sense of place rather than high drama and plot.

Something McGahern does particularly well here is to illustrate how each member of the family responds to Moran’s strict expectations and dominance within the unit. The girls feel a strong sense of attachment to their father, looking to him for recognition and confirmation of their continued existence. While Maggie and Mona are broadly accepting of Moran’s iron rule, Sheila will only follow suit on certain terms. She knows the family is crucial to her existence, reinforced by a deep sense of belonging to the home; nevertheless, following her marriage, she will not allow herself to be used or destroyed by it. Michael on the other hand, oscillates between casual acceptance and determined rebellion, the latter softening with the passage of time. Only Luke seems steadfast in his total rejection of Moran’s conservative, patriarchal values, continuing to hold out even as the advancing years take their toll. This strained relationship with Luke is a persistent source of anger and irritation for Moran, particularly as the boy shows no signs of wanting to visit home or update the family with his news. Consequently, Moran considers his eldest son ungrateful, inconsiderate, and not worth bothering about. Meanwhile, Rose demonstrates near-total compliance with Moran’s volatile behaviour, exhibiting only the occasional show of hurt.

In beautiful, understated prose, McGahern explores the tensions that lie at the heart of this eminently relatable family, subtly questioning the moral virtues of patriarchal power structures at the heart of Irish society. While Moran once thrived in the violent, masculine world of the IRA, he is much less at home in the domestic arena, unable to demonstrate the affection and compassion his family truly deserve. The book’s title has a dual meaning, reflecting both the largely female household Moran finds himself in and a significant line (‘blessed art though amongst women’) from the Hail Mary section of the Rosary prayers, which he leads on a daily basis, marshalling his family to chant without fail.

As this masterful novel draws to a close, there is a release of sorts as the family members gather at Great Meadow, watching over the ailing Moran as he confronts his own mortality. While in theory, his death will leave Rose and the children free to live on their own terms, unencumbered by the patriarch’s authoritarian rule, one suspects that Moran will continue to cast a shadow over the family long after his death.

I adored this subtle, beautifully observed book, which feels so well suited to fans of William Trevor, Colm Tóibín, Claire Keegan and Dierdre Madden, all of whom have an innate ability to see into the hearts and minds of their characters with insight and precision, laying bare their deepest preoccupations and insecurities for the reader to see. Very highly recommended indeed.

Amongst Women is published by Faber; personal copy.